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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/28270950">The Golden Years: Vignettes</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/aparticularbandit/pseuds/aparticularbandit'>aparticularbandit</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Jane the Virgin (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>F/F, Jamie makes a brief appearance in vignette 4</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-12-23</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-12-24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-10 21:29:48</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Not Rated</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>Major Character Death</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>5</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>31,145</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/28270950</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/aparticularbandit/pseuds/aparticularbandit</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>A collection of one-shots meant to show moments from what Rose and Luisa's golden years might have looked like.</p><p>(For the most part, each one-shot is independent from the others.)</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Luisa Alver &amp; Mateo Solono Villanueva, Luisa Alver/Rose Solano</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>11</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>1. Death, Or Something Like It</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><ul class="associations">
      <li>For <a href="https://archiveofourown.org/users/only_freakin_donuts/gifts">only_freakin_donuts</a>.</li>



    </ul><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>THE OTHERS ARE COMING THEY JUST AREN'T EDITED YET.</p><p>FIRST OF ALL.</p><p>also guess what you get a mix of angst and not so much angst and this first one?  definitely angst.  have fun.  ;D</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>They never really accept her.  That’s the first thing.</p><p>Jane never really understands how Luisa could ever have chosen someone like Rose, and as much as Luisa has never wanted Jane to try and explore it in her writing, Jane always does.  There are a lot of things that are rough about Jane, and her inability to acknowledge other people’s boundaries while always expecting them to acknowledge hers is one of them.  And for Luisa, who has never been good about boundaries, it’s a struggle.</p><p>Her therapist tells her that boundaries are good.  Luisa learns a lot about boundaries, after Rose.  With Rose, she hadn’t needed them, or, at least, she hadn’t <em>felt</em> like she needed them.  Rose had always been aware of where not to push too hard, where to leave things alone, where to just let her lie, breathe.  Rose would leave her alone until she wanted to talk about it.  Rose was….</p><p>Surprisingly intuitive for a sociopath, where she was concerned.</p><p>That’s the problem with Jane writing Rose.  She always writes her as a one-dimensional telenovela villain, and Rose was never that.  She’d been so much <em>more</em> than that.  But no one really understood that.</p><p>Hadn’t then.  Didn’t now.</p><hr/><p>The twins like her more than Jane does.  Mateo likes her more than Petra does.  JR likes her more than her own brother does.  Perhaps relationships that have been strained to the breaking point, relationships that finally snap broken, relationships that try to be grafted back together don’t always make it.  The tension is always still there.  Even on his deathbed, Rafael probably won’t want her around.  He pretends that he does, but in reality, Luisa knows better.</p><p>She does.  It’s impossible <em>not </em>to know.</p><hr/><p>Rafael’s cancer comes back, eventually.  She’s there just as much as Jane is, but her time is spent more with her nieces and nephew than with her dying brother.  She isn’t even the room when he dies, although she’s there.  He doesn’t want her in the room with his real family.  Rogelio holds the door open for her – or perhaps it isn’t really him, perhaps it is the ghost of him, and Luisa just remembers it later.  Maybe that part was just a dream.</p><p>Xo dies from a disease she catches as a nurse, some protocol that isn’t followed, but she and Ro had been better for Lu than Raf or Jane had.  It’s the little inroads – Xo holds it against Luisa that she got Jane pregnant, but Rogelio vouches for her in that way that only Ro can, and that gives her leeway to help Xo with her nursing program.</p><p>Of course, Xo and Ro are states away, but she visits more than Jane and Raf.  She’s desperate.  That’s what the word is.  <em>Desperate.</em></p><p>It’s the wanderlust that makes her feel like nothing she does is ever going to be good enough and the limited love from a family who seems like they will always convince her that is true – <em>ironic</em>, considering that was how Raf had felt about their father for so long.</p><hr/><p>After Rafael dies, Jane holds her at arms’ length when she interacts with her at all.  Mateo visits more than Jane does because he’s a sweet boy and he has more in common with his neurodivergent lesbian aunt than he does with his very neurotypical, very straight mother.  (Luisa is not sure that either of those is true.  She goes back to school and studies psychiatry and thinks there are a lot of things she could diagnose Jane with, but Jane would never believe her – not just because of who she is, but because Jane would refuse to believe that there could be anything wrong with her on that level.  And as for Jane’s sexuality?  She’s seen the way Jane and Petra look at each other sometimes – <em>especially</em> before they were both married.  That girl isn’t completely straight.  She’s just convinced herself she is.)</p><p>Once, Mateo confides that Jane has told him she’d rather he go to Petra and JR with his sexuality issues than to Luisa.  He pushes his hand through his fluffy brown hair and he looks so much like Rafael in that action that Luisa’s heart breaks.  “Petra knows what it’s like to be attracted to men,” Luisa points out, because it’s true, “so she can at least empathize with you on that.”</p><p>“Yeah,” Mateo says, with a scuff of the toe of his Dockers, his hands shoved into his pockets, “but she doesn’t know what it’s like to be stuck in a family that hates you.”</p><p>Luisa smiles – and it’s an awkward painful thing, because for all what she’s about to say is true, it has never brought her and Petra closer together.  “I think she knows what it’s like a lot more than we do.  Trust me.”</p><hr/><p>Petra doesn’t talk about Magda.  In fact, the entire family has seemed to decide to believe that she doesn’t exist.  As they age, the twins forget about their grandmother, their memories fading away into nothing.  Mateo still thinks that it’s cool that he was kidnapped as a baby, but he knows better than to ever mention that to his mom.</p><p>He comes to Luisa to listen to stories about Rose, and they keep it a secret from Jane.</p><p>He tells the twins, and something in them remembers having a murderous evil relative that their mother won’t talk about, and they come to Luisa, too, to learn as much as they can about the villains in their extended family.  Luisa can’t give Magda a heart; she doesn’t remember her all that well, but she tells them about Rose, who she loves, and she tells them what she can remember about Anezka, the aunt that they lost, and she tells them that there may be murderers in their family – herself chief among them (because she never admits that Petra killed Anezka, even though she has heard that it’s true and has heard the story of it) – but that sometimes murder happens for a good reason.</p><p>She tells them that the same way she tells it to herself.  <em>Murder can happen for a good reason.</em></p><p>They believe it more readily than she does.</p><hr/><p>In point of fact, it is Mateo who first suggests that Luisa shouldn’t live on her own anymore.  She has never felt like she is struggling with anything – not with the growing number of pills she has to be taking, not with the growing aches and pains in her increasingly fragile body, not with things that she probably should remember and doesn’t always (mostly schedules, and if she’s honest, she’s <em>never</em> been all that good with schedules).  She’s really only thought that she’s needed to make new habits to go alongside the ones that she has conveniently gotten rid of.  Wake up in the morning and have breakfast becomes wake up in the morning and take these pills before she eats and these pills afterward.  But she keeps track of those.  She keeps track of everything.  She thinks she’s been doing very well.</p><p>So what if she fell once?  So what if she had so much trouble getting up (there’d been pain, there’d been a lot of pain, it was a very painful moment, but she’d still had her mental facilities, which was the <em>really</em> important thing) that she’d decided to just stay on the floor instead?  She’d been able to crawl into the living room and turn on the television!  There were a lot of new telenovelas that she didn’t really care about these days – none of these new actors could compete with Rogelio, and the lesbian ones were....  Well, at least they <em>had</em> them now.  Cartoons were more her speed.  They were simple.  Easy.  She liked cartoons.  And she’d been able to slowly but surely scoot herself up as the day went on.</p><p>Mateo found her sitting on the floor, leaning her back against the couch, breathing maybe a <em>little</em> heavier than normal, but no harm, no foul, she’d still been able to get herself sitting upright, and <em>that</em> was the important thing!  <em>That was the important thing, Mateo, not the lying sprawled out on the floor for hours while she struggled to get to this position, it was actually getting to this position, </em>why<em> are you looking at her like that?</em></p><hr/><p>Jane doesn’t get put in a home because people in Jane’s family don’t get put in homes.  None of her children take her in, though.  Instead, they pay to have a house sitter take care of her.  They’re all very well off, in part because Jane herself had done so well with her writing (abnormally well, but then, that’s the stuff of telenovelas, isn’t it?) and in part because Jane’s connections (due to her…doing abnormally well) combined with <em>Rafael’s</em> connections (born from Emilio’s connections) combined with <em>Petra’s</em> connections (it is hard to put in familial terms her connection to the Villanueva-Solano family, but they usually call her an aunt) – well, the world falls open for them.</p><p>Mateo is a voice actor.  He’s a <em>good</em> voice actor.  Such a good voice actor that <em>really</em> the telenovela they make adapting Jane’s semi-autobiographical books into a series doesn’t have the money to pay him, but he takes it anyway.</p><p>Jane thinks it’s the pressure she puts on him to take it, but that’s not it at all.  Mateo wants no part in something that so trivializes the lives of <em>most</em> of his family members, let alone his favorite lesbian aunt, but he confides to said favorite lesbian aunt later that <em>he doesn’t want anyone else to do it either</em>.  If he’s in the room, then he can maybe put a better spin on his lines or modify some of them.</p><p><em>It was the fourth of July</em> is meant to be a joke about how Luisa and Rose’s fireworks were less legitimate because they had to physically be there.  It is meant to be an explanation that cannot be about their love actually causing them at all.  He does not spin it that way.  (He cannot get them to take the line out, and Luisa doesn’t want him to do so.  It <em>was</em> the fourth of July.  That <em>is</em> important, even if the show never delves into <em>why</em> other than to try and poke fun at them.)</p><p>Mateo brings Luisa into the writer’s room.  He means it to be a way for her to have a little bit of control over how she is portrayed.  She could care less about how she is portrayed.  She spends most of her time talking about Rose.  The writers take her as seriously as Mateo and the twins once had, and they listen to her more than they do to Jane.  Luisa is their singular authority on Rose.</p><p>They still have to kill her.</p><p>Luisa doesn’t watch that episode.  She can’t.  It hurts too much.</p><p>(She did not mean to push Rose, but Jane has always believed that she did.  The actress listened to her.  The writers wanted something closer to the book.  It was what it was.  She cannot change that.)</p><hr/><p>Jane does not get put in a home and is not taken in by any of her family members but has someone looking after her in her own house.  This is better for Jane, really, because it gives her that sense of independence and believing that she can continue doing what she has always been doing, but Luisa thinks it must be amazing lonely.</p><p>Mateo gives Luisa a room in his house because he understands that if he doesn’t, then there will <em>be</em> no in-home help because Luisa will find a way to get around them.  He doesn’t put Luisa in a home.  He knows better.  Luisa has described to him what working with the elderly in hospitals is like, what going to visit with some of her college groups and internships has been like, and how she feels that constant presence of death lingering everywhere so thick that she can smell it.</p><p>She has her mental facilities now, but throw her in a home, and she won’t be able to manage.  She’ll be able to <em>see</em> death, not just smell it, and she’ll fade away so rapidly that it might as well be assisted suicide.  Not a home, Mateo.  <em>Please</em> not a home.</p><p>Mateo takes her into his house like Kathy Bates takes Jessica Tandy into her house in <em>Fried Green Tomatoes</em> only his husband doesn’t put up a fight in the slightest.  Alejandro has heard so much about Luisa – he’s met her a handful of times, sure, and they’ve talked, but that’s not the same as <em>living together</em> – and he is <em>fascinated</em> to be around this woman who Mateo has told him so much about.</p><p>Alejandro confides, once, that Mateo refers to her as his third mother, his <em>real</em> mother, and Luisa feels a mixture of joy and shame in the words.  There is no lie there.  She <em>did</em> get Jane pregnant.  That isn’t what he means.  She knows that.</p><hr/><p>Jane dies alone in her house.</p><p>It comes as a shock to all of them.</p><p>(No, it doesn’t.)</p><p>The house worker had her day off, and one of the kids planned to be there to watch her, and they called, and she told them not to show up because they had lives and had things they needed to get done, and they had believed her.</p><p>By <em>one of the kids</em>, we do not mean Mateo.  She hasn’t quite forgiven him for taking Luisa in and not taking <em>her</em> in.  She doesn’t have to say it, but the feeling – the sentiment – is strong in every one of their interactions.  Luisa hears about it later.  She and Jane haven’t talked, really, in years.  Not since Raf died.</p><p>(Mateo was thirteen.  The split between his mom and his aunt had never felt so harsh as it did immediately after his father’s death.  Maybe that was his fault.  He thought she should have been in the room.  He’d fought with his mom about it.  That conversation had been one of the last ones his father heard them have while he was alive.  Mateo regrets that.  Regrets that his father had gotten involved at all.</p><p>He’d wanted Luisa in the room.  Mateo could <em>see</em> that.  But he didn’t want his last conversation with Jane to be an argument.  So the door remained closed, and Jane remained appeased.</p><p>He was so tired of everyone tiptoe pussyfooting around his mother.  It was part of why he’d invited – forced, really – Luisa to stay with him and Alejandro.  He was just so tired.)</p><p>So Jane’s death – it didn’t bother Luisa as much as she thought it would.  Didn’t bother her as much as Rogelio or Xiomara’s death did.  Certainly nowhere near as much as Rafael’s death so many years earlier did.  She watches to see how it will affect Mateo, waits to see if he will have the same sort of breakdown that she had with her father’s death – was <em>close</em> to having with her father’s death and <em>would have had</em> with her father’s death if not for—</p><p>Well, Rose is not an excuse here, considering his death was her fault, but Luisa’d been able to leave and take time to herself to recover.  Mateo has Alejandro.  Mateo has <em>her</em>.</p><p>Mateo isn’t <em>alone</em>.</p><hr/><p>There’s a huge legal battle over Jane’s estate.</p><p>Odd of it all – <em>ironic, actually</em> – that Jane hadn’t been more particular about her will, about who got what.  It seems like the sort of thing she would’ve been really specific about.  But it turns out that Jane hasn’t actually written her will in <em>years</em> – since long before Rafael died – probably because she didn’t think she would die the way she did or when she did.</p><p>Or maybe she just was too heartbroken in the wake of Rafael’s death to address the issue and then spent so long half-mad at Mateo that she wanted to wait until her feelings – and their relationship – was better settled and better reconciled before she reconvened with her lawyers (JR) to dictate how things would go.</p><p>Her will left everything to Rafael, first and foremost, and he was dead.  It dictated that he would decide who should get what.</p><p>Well, there wasn’t a Rafael, which meant everything then went to <em>Mateo</em>.</p><p>And then there was the fighting from there – because that meant <em>nothing</em> went to her daughters.</p><p>No, truthfully, it was more than odd that Jane hadn’t dealt with her will before her death.  Or maybe she really <em>did</em> want everything left to Mateo.  The black sheep.</p><p>But Luisa didn’t believe that.  Even her father, before he’d realized that Rafael wasn’t legitimately his, had split everything evenly between them, and her father had certainly loved Rafael less than—</p><p>No, that wasn’t true.  Luisa believed he loved them both very, very much.  She had just been a favorite.  Jane didn’t have favorites, and even if she did, it wouldn’t have been Mateo.</p><p>(Luisa knows the truth.  Mateo was the child that brought Jane and Rafael together.  He might have been the child most like Luisa, but he was also the one-in-a-million golden child of circumstance and opportunity and the face of the entire <em>Jane the Virgin</em> schtick.  He was the one child she had on the show, he was the narrator, <em>of course everything would be left to him</em>.  Jane loved the <em>idea</em> of her son, Mateo, more than the man he had grown up to be.  But she would never say that.)</p><p>Mateo doesn’t keep much of anything because he doesn’t want it.  Doesn’t want the money, doesn’t want the fame, doesn’t want the memories.  Most of them, for him, aren’t good.  Most of them, for him, are a cage.</p><p>But he keeps the rights to the estate.  He keeps control of the estate.  He <em>especially</em> keeps control of the entirety of the semi-autobiographical books his mother had published so long ago and the television series that was based on them, and with Luisa’s permission – and without his mother’s interference – he begins to write.</p><p>Mateo Alver-Solano-Villanueva-Ruvelle – who bookends his name with Luisa’s and Rose’s so as to combine all of their families into one big conglomerate despite Luisa suggesting that perhaps this is not the best way to respect all of them (and in fact would likely piss a fair few of them off if they were alive – actually would piss all of them off <em>except Luisa</em>, and maybe that was the point) – begins to write, and people eat up his words the same way they ate up his mother’s, except that he doesn’t write the sort of antagonistic rewrite of his mother’s love story that people would expect of him.  He doesn’t write a <em>Mateo Tells All</em>.</p><p>He continues the story.</p><p>The first story Mateo tells is that of him and his husband, Alejandro.  He doesn’t gloss over his mother’s reaction to his coming out – it hadn’t been in the papers, and it hadn’t been completely ignored, but Jane had not been entirely <em>thrilled</em> when Mateo came out.  It had taken time for her to accept him, longer still for her to accept his boyfriends throughout the years.</p><p>And this….</p><p>Luisa reads it and finds herself all over the pages of what he’s written just as much as Jane is.  They’re counters to each other, really.  Foils, in proper story-writing terms.  Jane, who struggles to accept him and his lifestyle, against Luisa, who accepts him immediately and walks him through it.  Jane, who keeps thinking maybe he might be bisexual and might still find a woman someday, against Luisa, who never much minds one way or the other because he is still and will always be her favorite nephew.  Jane, who is strict and organized and appears controlling, against Luisa, who always feels like she’s got one screw loose.</p><p>Petra is in it, too.  Of course, she is.  And she’s a good counter-balance to the two extremes, somewhere between Jane and Luisa, and consoling Jane more than she ever consoles Mateo.</p><p>Luisa asks, after reading it, if that’s true.  Petra is being looked after by one of her twins while the other explores the world, checking in on the hotel business that she has inherited.  JR is there, too, but she does not need near the care that Petra does.  And Petra confirms it.  Confirms all of it.  Says that Mateo has, of course, taken creative license, but he’s done so in the same manner and style that his mother has, so it fits right in.</p><p>Luisa holds the book to her chest and bites her lower lip and doesn’t know what to say.</p><p>When he approaches Luisa to ask if he can write about her romance story with Rose, she feels her breath catch in her throat.  <em>No</em>, she wants to say, because she can’t breathe, because it hurts too much to think about.  <em>No, you can’t, you mustn’t.</em>  And the best thing about Mateo is that he sees it in her face, and he drops it, and he doesn’t ask again.</p><p>The best thing about Mateo is that he knows asking again will only get him a firm no, but leaving it alone will give Luisa time to sit with it and think about it and make her real decision.</p><hr/><p>It takes a few months, almost a few days short of a year, before she says, finally, <em>yes</em>.</p><hr/><p>Luisa is old.</p><p>She’s <em>old</em>.</p><p>Rafael was seven years older than Jane, and she was seven years older than him, so she is <em>fourteen</em> years older than Jane, and Jane is dead, and somehow, <em>somehow</em>, she is still alive and she is still breathing and she has outlived them both.</p><p>Petra, too, has outlived them both, but it seems like JR will outlive them all because JR never seems to know how to slow down.  Luisa thinks, sometimes, that if Rose had lived, she would be a lot like that.  Unable to slow down.  Unable to know when to quit.  If she’d ever had another job, that is.</p><p>Rose <em>had</em> quit, once.  She quit for her.</p><p>
  <em>She hadn’t meant to—</em>
</p><p>The pain of that ebbs and flows over the years.</p><hr/><p>As Luisa talks with Mateo, as the two of them craft what will be her story – <em>their</em> story – into something that is….</p><p>She hates to admit the word <em>marketable</em>, and she refuses to use it, because she doesn’t care about marketable, and Mateo doesn’t particularly either.  These are stories that probably would not get near the attention that they do if not for the Villanueva name attached to them, if not for it being <em>Mateo</em> writing it, and there was such a mixed reaction to his last book that this one….</p><p>Well, it will sell, that’s for certain, but they might not be paid much for it.  Not upfront.  The publisher isn’t sure how well it will do.  The book readers didn’t particularly <em>care</em> for Luisa, and they cared even less for Rose.  The television series had helped with that in small part – it had made them real people more than what Jane wrote ever did – no offense meant to Jane, of course, certainly not from Luisa – and it is the show viewers who want more from them, who mourned for Rose’s death, who—</p><p>It doesn’t matter, in the end.</p><p>What might or might not be marketable.</p><p>They do not announce it the way Mateo’s first book was announced.  They keep it quiet.  They say nothing.  They talk and they write and Luisa cannot do as much as Mateo can because her energy is less and less these days, and she grows tired so much faster, and her spoons run out so much more quickly, and it’s age setting in and rattling her brain (and she thinks that Jane must be grateful that she never made it to the age that her brain felt fuzzy like this because Jane likely wouldn’t have been able to stand it, Jane who spent so much time trying to be in so much control and suddenly would actually be <em>losing it</em>), and Luisa is so tired.</p><p>She has always been tired.  That isn’t anything new.  Luisa thinks she has been tired since her mother died.  There have been brief moments where she felt actually <em>alive</em> – most of those with Rose, and after her death, that exhaustion has never really left.  Rose’s death killed what was left of her that felt….</p><p>No.  Sometimes, when she was with Mateo, she felt better.  She did.  She could <em>push through</em> the tired.  But in truth?  She is always tired.</p><p>It’s just that she’s getting more and more tired these days, and it is harder and harder to slough that off.  She’s ready, she thinks, to die.  She’s been ready for a long time.  And now that it’s growing nearer and nearer, she wants to welcome it with open arms.</p><hr/><p>She asks Mateo, finally, if they can make a change to the book.</p><p>It isn’t a big change, she assures him.  Nothing big at all.  Just a small one.</p><p>She tells him what it is, and he grins.  “<em>That’s not a small change,</em>” he says, and he raises an eyebrow, and that grin is like nothing she’s seen in so long and it reminds her of Rose, and the worst part of writing this little book is that it unearths what she’s been letting lie fallow and it makes everything raw again and it <em>hurts</em> to see him smile like she would.</p><p>She misses her so much.  <em>So</em> much.  And the ache with missing Rose is worse and louder than that ever-present exhaustion has ever been.  Maybe that is why she is so ready to die.  She isn’t sure she believes that she will see Rose again.  She hasn’t really decided what she believes about <em>after</em> death.  But she hopes – she still hopes, she is <em>so good</em> at hope – that she will.  Not to ease her own guilt over their last meeting.  But to….</p><p>Just to <em>be</em> with her again.  That’s what Luisa wants.</p><p>Writing the book has made that more and more apparent and it has helped less and less in that regard.</p><p>So she asks Mateo to make the change, and Mateo agrees, because what is the point in writing a fictional version of what happened if it doesn’t include changing the things you wish you could change.  This isn’t <em>actually</em> an autobiography.  This isn’t a memoir, either, although there are aspects of that to it.</p><p>This is a story.  It’s a romance story.</p><p>And the thing about Romancelandia?</p><p>
  <em>You don’t fuck around with the HEA.</em>
</p><hr/><p>Luisa doesn’t make it to the book’s release party.</p><p>She is so tired.  Too tired.  And she is falling apart.  And she doesn’t want her falling apart in public to detract from the book itself.</p><p>Mateo tells her afterwards that everyone wanted to meet her.  That they sent their love.  He brushes back her gray hair and tucks it behind her ear and she smiles up at him.  She’s never really had a son.  <em>Never really had</em> – correction: she has never had a son.  Or a daughter, to be fair, but the son bit sticks more.  Rafael was half hers, even though he was her brother, because by the time she was eleven, <em>she</em> was the one raising him.  He never saw it that way, but it’s true.  It is.  Elena was gone and Emilio cared but he was gone and busy so often, and Luisa raised Rafael as best as she could.</p><p>It isn’t the same as having a real son.  She knows that.  She <em>does</em>.  There’s no comparison.</p><p>She thinks Mateo would have been a good son, but even he isn’t really hers.  Between the father and the son, she’s had bits and pieces of motherhood.  Any more than that and she thinks she would have royally screwed them both up.</p><p>(Jane probably thought she screwed Mateo up.  Mateo doesn’t believe that.  It’s all in the point of view.)</p><p>Luisa apologizes for not being there, but she….</p><p>Oh, she hates this.  This lingering on.  She hates the disappointment.  Mateo isn’t disappointed, but she is.  That was a big, great, wonderful party, and if she was younger, she would have loved every minute of it.  And then struggled to not drink because there was likely an open bar (Mateo assures her that out of respect for her there was not, that they would never have had one, but here’s the thing – she’s so old that drinking would have screwed with her meds, so she wouldn’t have done it anyway, so there was no reason not to have one, in the end.  Still).</p><p>And Rose – Rose would have loved a party like that, would have <em>loved</em> to be there with her at a party like that, and thinking about it makes Luisa’s throat choke up, and she can’t breathe, and she can feel the tears as they are coming.</p><p>Mateo wipes them away, very gently, with the pad of his thumb.</p><p>She closes her eyes.</p><hr/><p>She sees Rose sometimes.</p><p>No, that isn’t quite true.</p><p>She doesn’t <em>see</em> Rose.  Not really.  But she knows she’s there.  Or knows that it’s <em>supposed</em> to be her.  She isn’t <em>really</em> here.</p><p>But she can feel her.  It’s the weight of her curling up in the bed next to her and brushing her hair back out of her face and pressing a gentle kiss to her forehead.  No one else would get in bed with her.  No one has in so long.  And even if someone else did, Luisa still remembers the feel of Rose in bed next to her.  It is so much different than anyone else ever was – before her or after her (and there weren’t many after her, certainly no one serious, only one-night-stands because sometimes she’d <em>needed</em> so desperately to have someone else with her, just to feel someone again).</p><p>Sometimes, she can even smell her – that scent of strawberry and lavender intertwined together so soft and yet so strong that it is unmistakable.</p><p>Rose comes more and more as time draws nearer for the book’s actual release.  Not the party – which in truth didn’t take place on the release date but earlier, so that Luisa <em>might</em> be able to come.  (She is so weak now, that they thought--  No, it doesn’t matter what they thought, she was still here.)  Luisa wonders, sometimes, if it’s the guilt of her that brings her back, that Rose is upset with her for changing their ending.</p><p>“I’m sorry,” she murmurs once, when the weight is there next to her and something – <em>Rose</em> – is tucking her hair back behind her ear and the scent is so strong and so present and so impossible to ignore.</p><p>But Rose never says anything to her.  She doesn’t say <em>anything</em>.  And that is so characteristic of Rose in these intimate moments, being quiet so that Luisa can speak if she needs to.  It’s always in the silence that Luisa can finally feel calm, after she’s said whatever she needs to say, <em>if</em> she needs to say anything, and Rose has always – <em>was</em> always – there to comfort her and console her and—</p><p>It’s that <em>missing</em> again, that roar of an ache, starting in the center of her chest and breaking through into her throat and dripping down her cheeks and it is not <em>fair</em>.  “You can’t touch me and not let me touch <em>you</em>,” Luisa says, and she presses her lips together so tight that she can feel one of them splitting.  She reaches out and—</p><p>There’s nothing there.</p><p>The weight is gone.</p><p>The scent is gone.</p><p>It’s like Rose wasn’t ever there.  Which is completely the case.  Rose <em>isn’t</em> there.  She’s just imagining her.  Luisa knows that.  Luisa <em>knows</em> that.  But it’s hard to convince herself of that when everything feels so real.</p><p>She rubs her hand across her eyes and gets rid of the tears and forces herself to breathe.</p><p>Just breathe.</p><p>Just—</p><hr/><p>“There will be a lot of letters,” Mateo warns her for what feels like the thousandth time the day before the book’s release day.  “You’re going to have fans – you <em>already</em> have fans – and they’re going to want to write you and talk to you.”  He tucks the comforter just around her neck.  There are more than a few blankets on top of that.  She’s so <em>cold</em> now anymore.  She <em>needs</em> the blankets.</p><p>Luisa grabs the edge of the blanket and smooths down beneath it.  It’s kind of true what they say – being old is a little bit like being a child again, having someone else to feed her and clothe her and tuck her into bed and make sure that she’s well taken care of.  She’d almost enjoy it if she weren’t so sore and so tired all of the time.  Even with the medication, she feels sore.  Not in a painful sort of way, almost like her body is as tired as she is.</p><p>Well, of course it is, after everything she’s put it through.  Of course, it would be tired.  She would be tired, too.  She <em>is</em> tired.  It’s <em>her</em> body.  Of course.  <em>Of course.</em>  She can’t help but laugh a little bit at the thought.</p><p>“They can send me letters.”  Luisa looks up at Mateo and meets his eyes and grins.  “I <em>like</em> letters.  Don’t you remember how much I liked your letters while you were at college?  And I always sent you some back.  I think I still have them,” she continues, reaching out for the dresser next to her bed.  Well – it isn’t quite a bed, as it keeps her angled just slightly upright instead of lying flat on the mattress.  “They’re in there.  They’re—”</p><p>Mateo takes her hand and closes it gently.  “Tomorrow,” he says with a little grin.  “We can look at them tomorrow.  For now, you need to get your rest.  Tomorrow’s the first big day of many big days.”</p><p><em>No</em>, Luisa wants to say.  <em>It isn’t.  No day is big anymore.  All days are the same.</em>  The big day was when Rose died.  Everything else pales in comparison.  And <em>No</em>, she still wants to say.  <em>I have had enough rest.  I have had enough!  I want to be out of this bed!  I want to see people!  I want to be with people again!</em></p><p>But she doesn’t say any of that.  He would be worried.  She knows he would be worried.  So instead she reaches up and pats his cheek gently.  “I’ll read them all, you know.”</p><p>“You shouldn’t do <em>that</em>.”  Mateo sits on the edge of the bed and pats her leg.  “Some people send some <em>really mean</em> letters.  A lot of them told me I was ruining Mom’s good name with my book.”  He chuckles darkly.  “Didn’t seem to realize she ruined her own name a long time ago.  I just write same as she did.  And if she’s nothing like the fictional version of her, then it’s <em>fiction</em>, isn’t it?  Same as her books were.”</p><p>It’s an old argument.  One that Mateo vents to her instead of venting on social media where it will come back to bite him.  They’ve had this conversation since before he even posted his book – about the Jane the media showed and the Jane he knew and the disconnect between them.</p><p>Sometimes, Luisa think it’s the disconnect that really destroyed Jane more than anything – having to live up to everything she said about herself as though those stories were all true instead of mostly fiction with some real life inspiration.  George Washington and the cherry tree and whether that was true or not – did George Washington ever have to live up to the version of himself that the country made into that hero?  Maybe.</p><p>Jane gave herself an almost impossible task, and it broke her.  Maybe she would have done better if Rafael hadn’t died so soon.  Maybe—</p><p>Luisa shakes her head.  “I want to read them,” she says with a little smile.  “They can’t say anything worse to me that I haven’t already said to myself.”</p><p>Mateo doesn’t have to say it – <em>You shouldn’t say those things about yourself</em> – because he’s said it a million times or more, whenever she brings it up.  It’s in the way he looks at her now – that sadness that isn’t quite like disappointment, isn’t even <em>close</em> to it, but still just that deep <em>sadness</em>.  But, then, Mateo knows what it is to say things to himself that aren’t good.</p><p>“You know,” Luisa says, still with that little smile, “if Rose were here, she would have been able to help.  With you.  She had ADHD, too.  She could have given you some pointers.”</p><p>“If Mom ever let her around me again,” Mateo says with a chuckle, rubbing the back of his neck.  His hair has grown long – <em>so</em> long.  It looks like Rafael’s did so long ago, just when Elena left, but it’s much more curly than Rafael’s ever was.  And unlike her brother, who had filled his hair with all sorts of products that made it <em>look</em> fluffy when really it was all sorts of dry and hard and sticky and <em>crunchy</em>, Mateo’s stays that soft and fluffy that it looks.  Whatever product he uses doesn’t detract from what it is.  Maybe he doesn’t use any product at all – he won’t ever tell her what he does with his hair.</p><p>Luisa smiles.  “You remember Eileen, don’t you?” she asks, knowing he doesn’t.  When Mateo shakes his head, she kneads her fingers into the comforter.  “Rose passed all of your parents’ tests, and they welcomed us with open arms.  You were only a couple of years old at the most, before you were diagnosed, and we were around….  <em>We were around.</em>”  She looks up with a sigh.  “You would never believe it, but Rose <em>loved</em> you.”  She laughs a bit.  “Maybe she just loved that she was around you and Jane didn’t even know.”  It’s hard to maintain focus.  “If we hadn’t been caught—”</p><p>“Don’t worry about the <em>what ifs</em>, Tia.”  Mateo lifts her hand and kisses her knuckles.  He’s not always a gentleman with her, but sometimes, when he wants her to do something, he <em>can</em> be.  “<em>Rest.</em>  You will need to rest before tomorrow.  Trust me.”</p><p>Luisa nods, a small thing.  “What if it’s like Christmas,” she says, meeting his eyes with a wry grin, “and I wake up early and want to open presents?  Will you let me do that?”</p><p>“I don’t know how many presents I’ll have,” Mateo admits, rubbing his thumb along her knuckles, “but if you wake up early and call for me—”</p><p>“No, no, no.”  Luisa’s grin broadens.  “I’ll get up.  Out of bed!  And <em>run</em> down the hallway, just like you used to do when <em>you</em> were tiny, all loud and excited and sit in the living room across from where the presents should be.”</p><p>Mateo chuckles.  “You’ll have a hard time with that.  We don’t have any presents set out for you.”</p><p>Inwardly, Luisa thanks him for saying it that way, for going along with her thoughts.  They both know she won’t be able to get out of bed and <em>run</em> anywhere.  She can get out of bed most days, but on the bad days?  It’s better not to move her at all.  But tomorrow will be a good day.  She’s sure of it.  It <em>has</em> to be a good day.  It <em>has</em> to be!</p><p>But Luisa doesn’t fight him anymore.  It isn’t really a fight anyway – she has all day to talk to him, and in the days, weeks, <em>months</em> leading up to the release they’ve been spending so much more time together to hammer everything out the way they – <em>she</em> – wants it.  Mateo has been deferring as much of the story as he can to her, only adding in small details that make things seem grander, fuller, <em>realer</em>.  She doesn’t mind him that.</p><p>She <em>has</em> read the thing, more than once, and when it was at its best – and it’s at its best now – it feels like….</p><p>Like the way things were, the way things should have been.</p><p>It feels <em>right</em>.</p><p>There hasn’t really been a way to communicate that to him, not to anyone.  They’ve already been getting readers from the previous books’ reactions, even though they haven’t read it.  So many of them are upset that Mateo has put Jane’s main story on the back burner for these sorts of things, and even more are upset with him for what they see as taking a story that was about Jane and Rafael and focusing more on side characters like himself, like Luisa, <em>like Rose</em>.  Even more of them are upset with him for wanting to tell a story about who they conceive as the villain of the story – who, in Jane’s books, <em>was</em> the villain – and the ones who don’t view Rose that way are upset that he would write a story that would end with so much heartbreak.  It will hurt worse if he gives her more time.</p><p>It <em>does</em> hurt worse.  Luisa knows that.  She hurts more than they do.  She understands that.  <em>She understands that.</em></p><p>But a part of her can’t wait to see how they will react when they see what they’ve changed.</p><p>(Some of them will be upset with the new ending.  It isn’t true to what actually happened, but then, so many things in the books aren’t.  <em>So many things aren’t.</em>  If they have forgiven those, then perhaps they will forgive these, as well.)</p><p>Luisa gives Mateo one last smile and raises her hand to waggle her fingers at him as he leaves her room.</p><hr/><p>It is the press of Rose’s weight in the bed next to her that rouses her.  Luisa is curled on one side, and this time, instead of brushing hair back out of her face, Rose wraps an arm around her and holds her close against her chest.  Luisa takes a deep breath, breathing her in, and reaches for where Rose’s arm is, knowing she won’t be able to touch her, surprised when she can.  She hums with pleasure but doesn’t say anything, afraid that doing so will make the other woman leave.</p><p>But it isn’t like Luisa to stay silent.  And she thinks maybe – <em>maybe</em> – if she continues holding onto her, then she won’t be able to leave.  “You listened to me this time, did you?” she asks, unable to keep the smile from her face.  “You can touch me, I can touch you.  It’s only fair.”</p><p>“It’s only fair,” Rose echoes, her voice so low that Luisa almost can’t hear it, but it’s there all the same.</p><p>This is the first time that Luisa has heard Rose’s voice in years.  She isn’t truly hearing it now.  She knows that.  And many of the times she heard it throughout the past decades – it hasn’t really been her then, either.  Just memories.  Imaginings.</p><p>That’s the nice thing about growing older – Luisa has learned to tell the difference between an actual hallucination and something she’s conjured up just to remember or to comfort herself.  Sometimes, in those early days after Rose’s death, she hadn’t been able to tell the difference – and there had always been the possibility that the Rose she was seeing was a ghost and not just something her mind was crafting to help her deal with everything going on.  But now?</p><p>Now, she knows.</p><p>It doesn’t surprise her that her mind has been conjuring Rose up so often recently when it has been so long since it has done so unprompted at all.  Luisa knows, deep inside herself, that she wants Rose’s approval.  Not for her life, not for her death, not for the choices she has made and continues to make, but for the book.  It’s a small thing, but it’s there all the same.</p><p>“Did we tell it right?” Luisa whispers, brushing her fingers against the hand wrapped around her waist.  “Mateo and I.  Did we tell it right?  Did you read it?”</p><p>“Read it,” Rose echoes again in that deep, welcoming voice of hers.  She hums and buries her face in the back of Luisa’s neck, and for a moment – just a moment – Luisa imagines she is somewhere else, some <em>when</em> else, a when where she can turn around and brush their noses together and press a kiss to Rose’s lips, a when where she isn’t stuck in a bed that feels so much like one of the hospital beds she remembers from her time in the mental institute (and she doesn’t like to remember the mental institute, which had felt so different from rehab even if part of that was only because she hadn’t chosen to be there).</p><p>Luisa closes her eyes and takes in another deep breath, the smell of strawberries rarely as strong as the lavender, but it cuts clearer through now than it used to, if only because there is so much lavender in her room on an average day.  The strawberry is sharp and tangy and <em>Rose</em> and she can’t help but say it.  “I miss you.  So <em>so</em> much.”</p><p>“Miss you,” Rose murmurs against her neck, lips tickling her skin.  “So much.”</p><p>Luisa turns – slowly, <em>so</em> slowly – with her eyes still closed so that she doesn’t scare Rose away.  It’s the <em>seeing</em> that is the hard part, although it has never been hard before.  “You keep repeating me,” Luisa says, and she taps where she thinks Rose’s nose is – grinning with good humor when she realizes she’s just tapped it.  “Don’t you have something to say yourself?  Or cat got your tongue?”</p><p>“<em>Villain got your cat.</em>”</p><p>Luisa jumps under her own skin.  Her eyes flick open, and Rose is gone.  There’s no weight, no hand, no comforting feel of the other woman pressed against her.  She shivers once in spite of herself and bites on her lower lip.  “Rose?” she calls into the emptiness, into the darkness that isn’t quite so dark because Mateo has one of those little kids’ mermaid nightlights stuck into one of the outlets to give her just enough light to get out and move around without stumbling into anything – to catch herself, if she <em>does</em> stumble.  “Please don’t leave me,” she says, as clear as she can make it.  “I know it isn’t you.  It’s okay that it isn’t you.  I know it’s just me making you up, but if I’m just making you up, then you can stay, can’t you?  Just for a little while?”</p><p>“<em>Just.  Making.  Up.</em>”</p><p>It reverberates and twists and echoes and it sounds wrong – sounds like her voice, sounds like Rose’s voice – and a part of her isn’t sure that she isn’t dreaming.  This would be just like a dream, appearing to be like real life only to come back and bite her ass when she tries to treat it as such.  The words grow softer as they echo back to her a second time, softer when they come back a third, and she takes another deep breath.</p><p>Sometimes, trying to get her imagination to comply with her – to get Rose to stay – is like trying to train a cat to come when it is called and to curl up in her lap and to let her pet it as much as she wants, instead of getting bored and walking away without a moment’s notice.</p><p>Not that Luisa has ever had a cat.  She’s not allergic or anything, she’s just always been more of a dog person.  Not that she’s ever had a <em>dog</em> either.  She hasn’t ever felt the need to get something else to care for when she’s proven to do such a horrible job of taking care of herself.</p><p>“Please, Rose.”  Her voice is soft, and she hopes it’s so soft that it can’t echo back at her like laughter.  “Please.  Just stay.  Just for a few moments.  Please.”</p><p>“<em>Stay.</em>”</p><p>The word, soft as it is, echoes back to her with Rose’s voice.  Soft and soft and softer still.  But as it echoes back to her, it feels like more of a question – <em>Stay?</em></p><p>Luisa nods once, hand tightening on her comforter, clenching it as tightly as she can and yet not very tight at all.  “<em>Stay</em>,” she repeats, looking everywhere and nowhere.  She can’t see Rose, doesn’t have any place to focus.  “Don’t go.”</p><p>“<em>Go.</em>”</p><p>This one is firmer, and in the echoing, everything else begins to fade.  Luisa is tired, so tired.  She stares around the room, around the nothing that is there, and listens to the echoing reverberating that is half her voice and half Rose’s and mostly hers and all so soft that she’s surprised with her failing hearing that she can hear it at all.</p><p><em>Rest</em>, Mateo had said.  <em>Rest.</em>  Maybe she should listen and not let Rose – imagined or not – do whatever it is she will do, because it doesn’t look like anything Luisa says or does will change her mind.  She curls back up on her mattress, angled just up so that it feels almost like she’s leaning against someone – or would, if it weren’t so <em>flat</em> – and forces herself to sleep.</p><p>Rose isn’t here.  Not really.</p><p>Stop pretending, Luisa.  Stop imagining.</p><p>Just.</p><p>
  <em>Stop.</em>
</p><hr/><p>The sun filters rose and lavender through her blinds, and Luisa is awake early and early and earlier still.  Her room smells the same lavender color spreading across the sky, and the faintest hint of strawberry continues to linger.  It’s from the previous visit.  Luisa can always smell Rose after she leaves, sometimes long after, just the slightest little whiff of her.  Mateo can’t.  She’s asked.  Which would be an indicator that this is all happening in her head, except that Mateo has a phenomenally <em>bad</em> sense of smell.  He can barely smell the lavender, and that’s so strong that sometimes it feels overwhelming.  Not now.  It doesn’t feel overwhelming now.  But sometimes.</p><p>Luisa yawns and stretches and the stretch feels good and bad and it’s too early for her to take her meds (and most of them require her to eat first) and she remembers that she <em>had</em> joked with Mateo about this <em>getting up early like a child on Christmas morning and scampering around to wake him up</em> and she laughs because she <em>has</em> to because that is <em>exactly</em> what has happened.  She’s woken up early, stomach churning like it would on Christmas morning – not out of excitement for the presents she might receive, but out of excitement to see how her friends and family would react to the presents she has gotten them (and worried, <em>so</em> worried, that what she has gotten will disappoint).  Mateo probably isn’t awake yet, unless he is having the same feeling that she is.</p><p>Then again, Mateo has never really had that same sort of anxiety.  He knows each book he publishes is another stone thrown at the brick wall that his mother has created out of the bones of their family, and he feels safe in the security that some of the people on the other side will yell triumphant at the crumbling and the others will greedily try to pull clay from beneath them to patch the hole right back up.  And, of course, there are passersby who know that the wall exists but could care less if it continues to exist or if it falls in its entirety.  Even if he <em>does</em> manage to destroy the wall, bits and pieces of it will still linger afterwards like a great divide between them and the others.</p><p>Always, always, until time has passed and the wind and the rain have devoured the fragments that remain.</p><p>Of course, they will all be dead, then.  Someone else will have the estate.  Someone in the family.  Someone Mateo trusts to protect their family’s stories.  (Luisa cares a little less about that.  When they’re dead and gone, when it’s someone else writing, then of course, no one will believe that it’s the truth about them.  Even <em>Little Women</em>, people analyze and debate and change things.  What happens after she’s dead?  Well, she’ll be dead.  She won’t much care then.)</p><p>Luisa turns and stretches again and feels her back pop and stares at the woman curled up on the bed next to her.</p><p>For all that she has heard Rose, for all that she has smelled her, for all that she has felt the weight of her next to her more and more recently, she hasn’t <em>seen</em> her.</p><p>Luisa opens her mouth and, surprisingly, nothing comes out and she closes her mouth and she opens it again and she bites her lower lip and <em>she doesn’t feel sore</em> and all at once, she is afraid.</p><p>“Rose?”</p><p>The woman turns to her, and she smiles.  There’s a shyness to her – just for the briefest of moments, a shyness Luisa doesn’t remember seeing on her before and wouldn’t imagine if she could because even in her vulnerable moments, Rose has never seemed <em>shy</em> – and then her confidence is back and full and real and Rose is <em>happy</em> about something, and a part of her—</p><p>Luisa has never been scared of Rose because Rose would never do anything to harm her.  Not while she was alive, not when she is imagined, and certainly not now.</p><p>Rose reaches over and brushes a hand through Luisa’s hair and smiles, and for a moment she says nothing, just looks and touches, letting her fingers move along Luisa’s cheek, swiping along the curve of her cheek, and hesitantly, Luisa reaches out, flinches, and then cups Rose’s cheek.  Rose doesn’t move away, doesn’t disappear, doesn’t fade into the air, and as Luisa brushes her thumb along her sharp, <em>sharp</em> cheekbones, she isn’t sure how to react.</p><p>“Are you really here?” Luisa whispers, staring at her.</p><p>Rose nods and then says, finally, “It’s time to go.”</p><p>She doesn’t have to explain it.  Luisa understands.  She looks around at the room and she sees herself – she hadn’t before, but she does now, sees herself still curled up on her bed even though she is sitting up straight staring at Rose.  “You <em>were</em> here,” she murmurs, looking back up.  “<em>You were really here.</em>”</p><p>Rose smiles and nods once, a small thing.  “You’re coming with me, aren’t you, Lu?”  She searches Luisa’s eyes, and for a moment, just a moment, Luisa sees something there that isn’t fear – <em>Rose is never afraid</em> – but is something like that vulnerability that Rose sometimes has.  “It’s time to go.”</p><p>“<em>I can’t</em>,” Luisa says, pressing her lips together and shaking her head.  “The book is coming out today, and I have to stay.  I have to write letters to the people who read it.  I have to help them feel better.  They’re going to want to feel better.  They’re—”</p><p>Rose shakes her head.  “You gave us a happy ending, didn’t you?  So let’s <em>have</em> one.”</p><p>Luisa’s eyes narrow, and she turns back to Rose.  “I don’t think <em>dead</em> is a <em>happy ending</em>, Rose.  I think most readers would tell you that when the protagonists <em>die</em> that is a <em>sad</em> ending.  In fact, I’m pretty sure that fucks with the happily ever after.  Dead is not a happily ever after in most people’s minds, Rose.”</p><p>Rose shrugs.  “They’re reading a fictional book, Lu.  They know I died.  They can know you died without me.  Most of them know that’s the truth anyway.”  She smiles.  “Except that you’re <em>with</em> me.”  She takes Luisa’s hand in her own, rubbing her thumb along her knuckles.  “<em>Besides, you are old.</em>”  The words are soft.  “Jane is dead.  Rafael is dead.  Petra is dying.  No one expects you to live forever.”</p><p>“I don’t want to live forever.  I want—”  Luisa takes a deep breath.  “I missed you.”</p><p>“So <em>stay</em> with me.”  Rose cups Luisa’s cheek and smiles, and it’s a sad thing as much as it is a happy thing.  “You have done enough.  <em>More</em> than enough.”  She stares at Luisa, and she is strong – <em>so</em> strong – staring at her, not forceful, not trying to manipulate (but likely definitely that).  “You can stay here now, but I will come again, and this will happen again, and eventually, <em>eventually</em>, you will die.  I know that you are tired, Lu.  So <em>rest</em>.”</p><p>Lu stares back at her body, still breathing, she can see herself still breathing, and Rose gently turns her face back to her.  “Come with me.”</p><p>She wants to.  <em>Of course, she wants to.</em>  It is impossible to put into words how much she would like to go.  She is so tired so often so much of the time, and this….</p><p>She thinks she wouldn’t be tired anymore.</p><p>Luisa bites her lower lip and looks back up at Rose, trying to smile.  “Tomorrow,” she says.  “Come back tomorrow.  Let me tell Mateo goodbye.  Let me….”  Her voice fades away.  It won’t do any good.  She’ll want to stay then just as much as she wants to stay now.  But she’ll have wrapped things up, maybe.  It would be nice to wrap things up, wouldn’t it?  To say goodbye?</p><p>Or maybe it is better this way.  Not knowing, not trying to cling, not trying to hold on.</p><p>“Where will we go?” Luisa asks, staring up at Rose.  “When I leave here, where do we go?”</p><p>“Come and see,” Rose says, her voice soft.  “Come with me and see.”</p><p>Luisa nods.  She starts to look down at her body again and then stops herself.  She nods again and turns back to Rose, taking her hand in her own.  This time, she doesn’t say anything, only leans forward just enough to give Rose a kiss.  Rose smiles against her lips, and when they part, she brushes her hair back out of her face.</p><p>This is enough, she thinks.</p><p>Perhaps this is finally enough.</p><hr/><p>Mateo finds her a little more than an hour later.  Her hair, normally mussed, is tucked just out of her face, and for once – for once – he can smell the strawberries that she’d always mentioned.  It’s a small thing, and perhaps he is imagining it, but he wants to believe that it’s there.</p><p>He steps forward and presses a kiss to Luisa’s forehead.  She’s cold.  Of course, she’s cold.  She’s <em>always</em> cold.  But he knows better than that.</p><p>Then he tucks her in a little closer, a little warmer, and leaves.</p><p>He knows as well as anyone that they don’t need him here anymore.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0002"><h2>2. Achy Breaky Stew</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“<em>Don’t.</em>”</p><p>The word is through Luisa’s lips before Rose does so much as step towards her, and she turns from the pot to stare at the other woman.  Rose is still just as beautiful as she’s always been – even more so now, despite her hair growing white with age, despite the wrinkles lining her face.  Wrinkles are just stories, after all, of ways that they have lived, expressions that they have had so often, so much, that they leave their mark indelibly from use.  There are crow’s feet – laughter lines – at the corners of Rose’s eyes from how tight they get when Luisa tickles her sides; there are wrinkles on her forehead from how often Rose has raised her brows to stare at Luisa with astonishment; there are curves at the edges of her lips—</p><p>For a woman who was said to have used plastic surgery to make herself look eight years younger than she was – truly, if Jane was going to lie about that in her book, she should have made Rose so much older than she was for it to even make sense – more importantly, for a woman who still <em>could</em> have plastic surgery to touch up what she had once referred to as the Sistine Chapel of faces to choose to not do so—</p><p>Luisa is proud of her.  She never says it.  She never has to.  But the feeling remains.</p><p>
  <em>Still.</em>
</p><p>Luisa meets Rose’s eyes and stares her down as much as she can.  “You stay <em>right there</em>.  Don’t come any closer.”</p><p>Rose’s lips turn down into a pout.  Once, that expression would have been enough to cause Luisa to change her mind, but not anymore.  Luisa’s eyes just narrow as she stands her ground.  “Don’t even try that with me.  You come over here, and you’re going to end up burning your tongue, and you’re going to ask me to kiss it better, and we’re going to end up over on that couch over there, and then this stew will end up burned, and I was actually <em>really</em> looking forward to this, and I don’t want it to burn, Rose, so please, <em>please</em>, don’t do it.  For me.  Please.  Exercise some self-control.”</p><p>“We don’t <em>have</em> to end up on that couch over there,” Rose murmurs as she steps closer, ignoring the hand Luisa puts up in an attempt at a firm stop sign.  “In fact,” she continues, pressing one hand against the small of her back, “I think it would be better if we didn’t.  Sex on the couch leaves me sore.”</p><p>Luisa continues to stare at her, lips pressing together, eyes roaming Rose’s body.  “Good sex with me <em>always</em> leaves you sore.”</p><p>“Not that kind of sore.”  Rose looks up at Luisa, meeting her eyes, lips still turned into a pout.  There are lines around her lips from how often she has pulled this expression over the past years, so that even when she <em>isn’t</em> pouting, Luisa can easily imagine it there.  She presses that hand against the small of her back and arches it ever so slightly.  “Sex on the couch is bad for my back.”</p><p>“Bad for your back?” Luisa echoes, raising one brow.  “Rose, you sound <em>old</em>.”</p><p>Rose groans as her back just <em>pop</em>s.  “I <em>feel</em> old.”  She takes another step closer.  “I don’t like it.  You should help me feel less old.”</p><p>“Rose, if you don’t want sex on the couch that hurts your back, then don’t do the thing that you <em>know</em> will end up with sex on the couch that will hurt your back.”  Luisa turns back to the pot, stirring it carefully.  The stew is one of her favorites.  In fact, it’s her own recipe.  Almost.  Mostly she found a few recipes online that she really liked, and she meshed them together until she created something she liked even better, and then she added <em>significantly more seasoning than the recipe called for</em> because <em>white people don’t know how to cook</em> and ended up with this.</p><p>It makes Rose’s eyes water, but that’s better than it used to be.  Rose used to get all snotty when they had it, and then she would complain that Luisa just wanted her to look <em>sick</em>, and if Luisa was just cooking this to make her look sick so she could play doctor, then she wasn’t going to eat it.  She would sit back in her chair and cross her arms and give her that stubborn stare that Luisa had perfected years ago and which Rose could only give a pale copy of.  To be fair, a pale copy did wonders on everyone who wasn’t Luisa herself (and often did wonders on Luisa, too, even though she could see right through it).  It had taken careful explanation that if Luisa wanted to play doctor with Rose, the only thing she really needed to do was dress up in a sexy doctor’s outfit (or a sexy nurse’s outfit, although that one was more Rose’s speed) – not feed her really spicy food – to get Rose to try it again.</p><p>The watery eyes are indicative of over a decade’s worth of progress.  Oddly, they make Luisa proud.</p><p>“But what if I <em>want</em> sex, just not on the couch?”  Rose sidles up to Luisa and wraps an arm around her waist, pressing a gentle kiss to the side of her neck.</p><p><em>Like a vampire</em>, Luisa thinks, and she grins as she turns back to Rose.  “Pretending to be Edward Cullen today?” she asks, one brow raising as she continues to grin.  “I thought you <em>hated</em> him.”</p><p>“<em>Those books are such heterosexual trash, Lu.</em>”  Rose groans, pressing her free hand to the bridge of her nose and pinching it.</p><p>Luisa shrugs.  “I like them.  They’re easy reading.”</p><p>“And they’re better than Jane’s books.”</p><p>Luisa reaches back and pushes Rose’s arm.  “We don’t talk bad about Jane’s books, Rose.”</p><p>“Not around her, anyway.”  Rose reaches around Luisa, aiming one finger for the pot, but Luisa slaps it away.  She waves her hand in the air.  “<em>Ouch.</em>”  She leans her head on Luisa’s shoulder and stares down at the stew.  “Someone would think you’d rather have food than sex.  <em>Someone</em> would think you <em>didn’t want to have sex</em>.”</p><p>Luisa sighs and turns to face Rose.  “I just don’t want to have sex on the couch,” she says, giving Rose a kiss.  “It hurts your back.  And I want to finish my stew.  And the best way to do <em>both</em> of those things is for <em>you</em> to let me finish making this,” she gives her another kiss, “and then we can go to the nice, comfortable bed that <em>doesn’t</em> hurt your back while it cools off.”</p><p>Rose nods along with her appreciatively, then stops as she looks at the stew.  “This is that stuff that gets spicier the next day, isn’t it.”  Her words aren’t a question – she knows the answer before she even asks it.  She presses her lips together and looks back up at Luisa.  “If we leave it to sit, it’s just going to get spicier.”</p><p>“Mmhm.”  Luisa nods once, stirring the stew again.  “<em>But</em> you’ve gotten so much better at handling the spicy over the years, so I figure you will be <em>just fine</em> with—”</p><p>“If we eat this first, you are <em>brushing your teeth</em> before we have sex.”  Rose unwraps her arm from around Luisa.</p><p>Luisa sighs.  “The entire point is that we <em>don’t</em> eat this first before—”</p><p>“And <em>you</em> are taking a <em>shower</em> because I don’t want jalapeno covered fingers sticking up my—”</p><p>“<em>Not jalapenos.  Something spicier.</em>”</p><p>“That’s worse.”  Rose crosses her arms, standing a fair bit away from Luisa, and glares at her.  “You see how that’s <em>worse</em>, right?”</p><p>Luisa sighs.  “Fine.  Shower.  No sex on the couch.”  She turns to face Rose.  “You’re getting really picky in your old age, Rose.  You’re sure that sex is even on the table for you?  Wouldn’t want to break you.”</p><p>Rose gives her a shocked expression, and Luisa sticks her tongue out at her.  “Oh, we are having sex,” she says, staring at Luisa.  “We’ll have sex in the shower.  That won’t hurt my back.”</p><p>“Unless you slip and fall.”</p><p>“<em>I won’t slip and fall.  I have the grace of a panther.</em>”</p><p>Luisa raises one brow.  “Says the woman who tripped over the edge of the coffee table yesterday.”</p><p>“It jumped out at me!”</p><p>Luisa laughs.  “Don’t sound so <em>mad</em>, Rose.  You’re getting sex.  <em>From me.</em>”  She meets her eyes again.  “Just maybe not in the shower.”</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0003"><h2>3. The Scrapbook</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“What are you looking at?” Rose asks as she enters the room, raising one hand to cover her yawn.  It’s late – those hours she once would have been able to stay up far past but now see her fighting exhaustion as her body wears down.  (She doesn’t like to think about this; she doesn’t like to think about death looming closer and closer.  She’s avoided her own death – and faked it – enough times that she ignores its inevitability as much as possible.)</p><p>Luisa is curled up on one of their sofas, a big book open and spread across her lap.  Truth be told, there are a lot of books it could be; Luisa has consistently refused to let her get rid of any of the children’s books they’d collected while Mia was growing up and often goes back to them to cool herself off on days (or nights) when she feels most anxious.  It’s the same principle as returning to children’s cartoons – or, at least, that’s how Luisa has explained it to her.</p><p>When Rose speaks, Luisa glances up and gestures over with one hand.  There are wrinkles there now that weren’t there before, and her hair, which was once a dark, dark glossy brown tinging on black is now streaked with grey.  (Rose, on the other hand, bleached her hair a bright, blinding white once she noticed her own hair lightening.  Luisa hadn’t liked it at first – <em>Rose</em> hadn’t liked it at first, either – but there is something comforting about embracing her age and letting herself appear it instead of trying to make herself seem younger.)  She grins.  Even now, there’s a sparkle in her eyes when she grins, and Rose can’t help but love her.</p><p>“Come see!”</p><p>Rose isn’t hesitant.  She’s never hesitant with Luisa.  There’s no reason to be.  (Actually, this is not true.  There are a whole host of reasons to be hesitant with Luisa – mostly when she’s in a place where her mental health is less stable, when Rose needs to be more careful about what she says and how she says it so as to not make things worse.  This has gotten easier over their years together, and while she still has to think when it comes to those moments, she’s gotten better at recognizing them and better at not saying the wrong thing.  <em>Most of the time.</em>)</p><p>But she can’t help the widening of her eyes as she sits on the couch next to her, as they sweep the book to see what it is – a scrapbook – as she finds herself immediately moving into the defensive, despite Luisa not having done anything to indicate that she should be.  Still, the first picture Rose sees is one of her family from so long ago – back when Rose was still married to Emilio, when Rafael was still married to Petra, <em>when Emilio was still alive</em>.</p><p>They have moved past this.  She knows that.  <em>They have moved past this.</em></p><p>And yet Rose still feels herself moving to the defensive.  She can’t see this going well.</p><p>“I’ve been making scrapbooks,” Luisa says with a smile, and she runs her fingers along the picture, tapping it once.  “Mostly when you were gone.  I needed something to do.”</p><p>Rose rolls her eyes.  “You could have gotten a job.  One of the easy ones.”</p><p>“One of the ones even <em>I</em> couldn’t mess up?” Luisa says with a sharp edge, one brow raising.</p><p>“You said it, not me.”  Rose scans the sheet.  “Are you feeling nostalgic?” she asks in an attempt to change the conversation, hesitant not because Luisa is in one of her moods but because she doesn’t want to somehow draw one out.  They might have <em>moved past</em> Emilio’s death and everything with Rafael, but that doesn’t mean that talking about them doesn’t pretty much immediately <em>start</em> one of those moods.</p><p>Luisa nods.  She reaches over as though to pull Rose over to her and then seems to decide against it, curling up against her instead.  The action <em>should</em> make Rose feel more comfortable, more relaxed, but she still feels tense.  “We don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to,” she says, flipping from that page to another one.</p><p>“I’m willing to listen,” Rose says, feigning lack of hesitancy.  She presses a kiss to Luisa’s forehead.  Listening isn’t an argument, isn’t accusations.  She knows this.  She <em>knows</em> this.  Still.  It is hard to be confronted with things that the love of her life believes she has done <em>wrong</em>.</p><p>She has done <em>nothing</em> wrong.  <em>Nothing.</em></p><p>Maybe a few mistakes here or there, but Emilio?  He wasn’t one of them.  (And Rafael was <em>not her fault</em>.)</p><p>“I miss them,” Luisa says, finally, leaving the page turned.  When she smiles, it’s a sad thing – not accusatory in the least.  “Dad – I’d miss him anyway, you know,” she confides, her voice soft as can be.  “He probably would’ve worked himself to death.  Never retired.  Probably suffer a heart attack somewhere overseas and not be found by anyone.”</p><p>“His wife would have found him,” Rose corrects, even though she, of all people, knows the likelihood of that.  Emilio had trusted her – had <em>used</em> her – more than most of the other wives he’d had before her, and even <em>she</em> hadn’t been with him on all of his trips.  Part of that had been from her own choice – she had needed to stay behind and keep close tabs on her own, much more private business – and it was easy to convince him to let her stay behind.  But just as often, he had needed – <em>wanted</em> – the time to be alone.</p><p>Some of that, of course, had been to manage his <em>own</em> private illegal business, and some of that had been—</p><p>Rose grits her teeth together as she remembers the affair he’d had at the end of their relationship.  She hadn’t even <em>known</em>.  How many more had he carried out under her nose just because she’d believed that he would never find anyone as satisfying as she was?  (She still believed that.  Men were just idiots.)</p><p>So, no, Emilio’s wife – assuming he’d had one, assuming she hadn’t killed him, assuming they’d never been married – wouldn’t necessarily have found him.  But if they are crafting a world where he lived, it might be worth the lie.</p><p>Luisa curls a little closer to Rose, resting her head on her chest.  “You’re just saying that.”  She looks up and presses a quick kiss to the edge of Rose’s jaw.  “I know when you’re lying.”  She turns the page again.  This one has a lot of pictures of Luisa with Rafael, just the two of them.  “I miss him, too.”  She sighs.  “I know you don’t, so you don’t have to say it.”</p><p>“I wasn’t going to say anything.”  Rose brushes some of Luisa’s hair back out of her face.  It’s even greyer this close up, although it’s still as soft as it has always been.  Softer than Rose’s own, which has been in part destroyed by the hair dyes, the bleaching.  It’s soft, to an extent, but sometimes it feels dry, scratchy.  Luisa’s is always soft.  “I never <em>hated</em> your brother, Lu.”</p><p>“He didn’t hate you either.”  Luisa smiles.  “I think you two would have been able to make up and move on if not for—”</p><p>“—Jane,” Rose completes as Luisa turns the page.</p><p>There, on the pages open in front of them, are more than enough pictures of the woman in question.  Luisa had spent time with her during that year when Rose was Susanna, although Jane had never really liked her.  In fact, once Rose was Eileen, Jane had made sure to hold the both of them at arms’ length, despite the hoops Rose went through to prove that she wasn’t herself (even though she was).  Jane was the one who never trusted her, and Jane was the one who refused to leave either of them alone around Mateo, as though Luisa would ever do anything to hurt her nephew.</p><p>Rafael had, eventually, brought Mateo to meet Luisa.  He’d gotten along well enough with both of them – with <em>Eileen</em> and Luisa, anyway – to allow for that.  Of course, he had to be there every time Luisa wanted to see her nephew, and it had taken <em>years</em> of conversations with Jane, letting the other woman grow semi-comfortable with them both, before she’d even agreed to that.</p><p>And when they found out Rose had been Eileen—</p><p>Well, there was really no coming back from that.  Even after Rose had faked her death – <em>again</em> – Jane and Rafael continued to hold Luisa at arms’ length.  Worse, they’d held whoever she dated – whoever Rose pretended to be – at further length.  They could trust Luisa, maybe, but whoever she dated?  She’d heard them say it countless times – heard <em>Jane</em> say it, heard Rafael say it on Jane’s behalf – Rose might be dead, but Luisa didn’t have the best judgment when it came to <em>significant others</em>.  Besides, the revolving door of women after Rose’s death wasn’t good for Mateo.</p><p>Luisa got to spend <em>some</em> time with him.  When Rose finally settled on one face and one appearance, she mentioned to Rafael that her girlfriend had also dealt with ADHD growing up and might have some tips, and so Rafael allowed them both to spend time with Mateo – the same as they had before, with one caveat.  Whenever Luisa’s girlfriend wanted to teach Mateo <em>anything</em>, Jane had to be there.</p><p>The relationship had faltered and fallen as time went on.  Luisa didn’t stop reaching out, but Rafael grew further and further away.  Not of his own free will, perhaps.  Jane’s control over his life just grew stronger and stronger.  It made Rose regret shooting Michael the way she did.  She hadn’t <em>meant</em> for him to <em>die</em>.  If she’d wanted to kill him, she would have shot him point blank through the forehead.  She’d actually meant for him to <em>live</em>.  She’d <em>liked</em> Michael.</p><p>Which was saying something.  Rose didn’t <em>like</em> men.</p><p>Luisa turns the page, and this one is filled with pictures of them with Mateo.  The different faces Rose has worn throughout the years, the one she finally settled on.  For a guy, Mateo had grown quite handsome as he aged, but what Rose most enjoys is picking out Jane’s face in the background of each of them.  Always photobombing, always annoyed.  Most of the time, Luisa isn’t even paying attention to whoever is taking the picture.  Her focus is entirely on her nephew, and she is <em>so</em> in love with him.</p><p>Rose settles.  She shifts.  It is harder to stay in one position for long; her legs ache a little more quickly than they once did.  She doesn’t like to think about that.  “Is this scrapbook full of pictures of them?” she asks, careful not to let a drop of bitterness enter her tone.</p><p>“No.”  Luisa reaches behind them and pulls a blanket from the back of the couch.  She puts the scrapbook to one side and wraps the blanket around them, shivering once as she does so.  “There’s other pictures.  It’s a big scrapbook!  Those are just the ones I’d gotten to.”</p><p>Rose raises an eyebrow.  “What’s at the front?”</p><p>Luisa blushes, and her cheeks grow a bright, vivid scarlet.  She picks up the scrapbook and lays it in Rose’s lap, curling up closer to her in an attempt to grow warmer.  “Why don’t you flip to the front and see?”</p><p>Rose raises a brow.  She doesn’t ask, just closes the book and opens it to the first page.</p><p>
  <em>Oh.</em>
</p><p>The front of the book – spread dead center – is a picture of their wedding day.</p><p>They’d had <em>two</em> weddings – one just for the two of them, where Rose could be herself, where Rose could <em>look</em> like herself – and another one where Luisa’s family could come and celebrate with them, where Rose wore the face that they’d come to know as Luisa’s wife, a mask she’d worn less and less as time had gone on.  This picture, dead center, was from their wedding – the one just for them.</p><p>They’d had a professional there to take pictures.  This one shows the two of them at the very front of the aisle, standing just in front of the woman who had officiated the marriage, staring at each other.  Rose just stares at the picture for a few moments, a small smile beginning to spread at the corner of her lips.  “We were beautiful.”</p><p>“You’re still beautiful,” Luisa corrects amicably, reaching up and cupping Rose’s face.  “I don’t think I would have stayed married to you if I didn’t think you were still beautiful.”</p><p>Rose’s eyes widen, but she doesn’t say anything.</p><p>“<em>The point is that I will always think you are beautiful, Rose, not that I would ever think about divorcing you.</em>”  The words tumble out of Luisa’s mouth all at once, and she stares up at Rose.  She pats her face a couple of times.  “I didn’t marry you just because you were pretty.  That was just an additional bonus.”</p><p><em>As opposed to your father</em>, Rose thinks, <em>who only married me because I was pretty.</em>  This isn’t strictly speaking true, but it’s the closest truth to it.  Still, she won’t say it.  That would only start a fight – and an <em>old</em> one at best – and it’s not worth it.  “You’re pretty, too,” she says instead, wrapping her free arm around Luisa’s waist and pinching her skin ever so slightly.</p><p>“Don’t make it sound like such a consolation prize.”</p><p>Rose smirks – a barely concealed laugh bubbling in the back of her throat – and turns the page.  The next few pages are scattered with more pictures of their first marriage.  There aren’t as many of them as she would have liked, but there are enough.  And next to the pictures, Luisa has scrawled different notes: <em>This was the best day of my life!</em> or <em>We were so in love!</em> or sometimes just doodling a bunch of hearts around a picture of Rose because she could and it was her scrapbook.</p><p>“We <em>were</em> so in love?” Rose comments on one of them, pointing one manicured fingernail towards it.</p><p>Luisa rolls her eyes.  “We’re <em>still</em> so in love, Rose.  It’s just a note!”  She sticks her tongue out at her.</p><p>Rose flips to the next pages and finds pictures of their second wedding next.  She knows ahead of time that she doesn’t want to look at these, although she scans Luisa’s notes as she goes from one page to the next.  These are a little less cute – <em>Rose had to hide her face because Rafael would have killed me for marrying her</em> or <em>Jane let Mateo be our ring-bearer, but only because Raf badgered her into it.</em> next to Mateo in his little suit and <em>The twins were our flower girls!  Petra and JR like us a lot; it should have been one of Jane’s daughters, but she didn’t want them to be involved.  Her loss!  Their dresses are GORGEOUS.</em></p><p>It isn’t like these comments <em>hurt</em> at all.  Rose would have to actually care what Jane and Raf thought for the comments to hurt.  Instead, they just make her mad.  It’s a resurgence of that same frustration she had felt so many years ago when they first decided to get married, when they decided to hold this second one just for Luisa’s friends and family.  She’s mad on Luisa’s behalf because Luisa wouldn’t be mad about it.  That feeling doesn’t go away.  Not really.</p><p>Rose moves through those pictures quickly enough and finds herself right back to the ones Luisa had been on when she sat down next to her, when she found her.  She bites her tongue before she says it – not the first time and probably not the last: “I am…<em>sorry</em> that your father wasn’t able to be at our wedding.”</p><p>Luisa laughs.  “I’m not.”  She looks up and meets Rose’s eyes.  “I mean, I’m sorry that he wasn’t there because I always wanted him at my wedding, but he wasn’t at my wedding to Allison – my own fault, really, that’s not on him – and I guess….  Let’s be real, if he’d been there when you and I married, that would have just been awkward.”  She looks back down at one of the pictures of him and sighs.  “Me, marrying his ex-wife.  That would have been <em>really</em> awkward.”  She chuckles.  “Almost as awkward as what’s his name being at Petra and Raf’s wedding.”</p><p>“Lachlan.”</p><p>“Yeah, him.”  Luisa pushes a hand through her hair.  “I was drunk so much that I never could remember his name, and by the time I <em>would</em> have learned it, he wasn’t around anymore.  Dad liked him, though.  More than Raf.”</p><p>“Not really.  He just thought he was a better businessman than Raf.”  Rose shakes her head.  She doesn’t want to talk about Emilio or what he thought.  Not again.  She lifts the scrapbook the slightest bit.  “How much is <em>in</em> here?” she asks.  “This thing is as thick as a ton of bricks.”</p><p>“You’d know, wouldn’t you?”</p><p>Rose rolls her eyes.  “I didn’t <em>lift</em> tons of bricks.  I had people to do that for me.”</p><p>“Close enough.”  Luisa runs her fingers along the sides of the book, lifting a few of the pages but not so much as to turn them.  “It’s like a binder,” she says, finally.  “I add pages as they get done.  So it’s…big.”  She laughs again+++++++++++.  “Probably I should get another one and start moving stuff over, but I like having one big book that’s the whole of our lives, you know?”  She looks up and tries to meet Rose’s eyes.  “You should write on some of the pages.  So I can read them later.”</p><p>Rose raises an eyebrow.  “What would I write?”</p><p>“Things you think.  Things you remember.  Good stuff.  <em>Bad stuff.</em>”  Luisa smiles.  “Whatever you want.”  She shrugs.</p><p><em>Not whatever I want</em>, Rose thinks but doesn’t say, brushing a hand through Luisa’s hair.  There are a lot of things she could write on some of these pages that would only frustrate Luisa, even though they were true to her lived experience.  It wouldn’t be worth it, in those cases.  She knows better.  Still.  “Maybe later,” she says, although she’s never been one for scrapbooking.  She flips through – past the pages of family members who do not care about her and who she, for the most part, does not care about, before finally settling on the pictures of <em>them</em>.</p><p>She feels her heart grow warm, almost as though it is glowing.</p><p>Mia’s grown so much since she was born, but these first pictures are from when she was tiny.  <em>The tiniest.</em>  Rose remembers when she was born.  She remembers holding her in her arms and brushing the tiny strands of dark hair out of her eyes.  Most of all, she remembers how her heart had grown three times the first moment Mia’s tiny hand had clasped around her finger, as if she were the Grinch and Mia was Cindy Lou Who, catching her in the act of trying to steal Christmas.  People always talk about how babies smell good, but it wasn’t a baby thing.  Mia just <em>was</em> good.  She was always good.</p><p>
  <em>Even if she could be sometimes a little bit terrifying.</em>
</p><p>“I can’t believe we had a kid,” Rose finds herself saying, voice soft as it can be.  “I can’t believe we didn’t screw her up with raising her.”  She knocks her head gently against Luisa’s.  “Although I think that’s because she’s more your kid than she is mine.”</p><p>“<em>She’s yours, too</em>,” Luisa protests almost as soon as the words leave Rose’s mouth.  “Just because I had her doesn’t mean she’s not still one hundred percent you.  You’ve <em>been</em> around our kid, haven’t you?  You’ve seen her!  She’s <em>just</em> as stubborn as you are!”</p><p>“She got that from you.”</p><p>Luisa’s eyes narrow.  “She got that from <em>you</em>.”</p><p>Rose traces a circle against Luisa’s waist.  “You’re stubborn, too, you know.”</p><p>“When I have good reason.”  Luisa lifts her head and moves away from Rose just the slightest bit.  “You’re just <em>always</em> stubborn.  And!”  She raises a finger.  “You arguing with me over who is more stubborn just proves my point!”</p><p>Rose’s eyes narrow.  “You’re arguing with me, too.  Doesn’t that make you <em>just</em> as stubborn as me?”</p><p>“Nope!”  Luisa sticks her tongue out at Rose again.  “I’m the one who called it, therefore I’m the less stubborn one!”</p><p>Rose bends closer to kiss her and then pulls away with a gentle smirk.  “Say that again.”</p><p>Luisa lets out a deep breath, steeling herself.  “I’m the less stubborn one.  I don’t resort to kisses and sexual allure to win my arguments.  I make valid points.  I—”</p><p>Rose kisses her again, grinning as she pulls back.  “First of all,” she starts, raising a finger before Luisa can say anything, “I make valid points, too.  In fact, I make valid points <em>better</em> than you do.  It comes with the <em>being a lawyer</em> territory.  Second,” she continues with a wry look, “what is this about you not using kisses and sexual allure to win arguments?  You do that <em>all</em> the time.  Particularly when it comes to cooking and getting me to stay out of the kitchen.”</p><p>“I’m not resorting to them <em>now</em>.”  Luisa pouts, blinking up at Rose.  “I was trying to play fair and square.”</p><p>Rose shakes her head.  “I’m not sure you know what fighting <em>fair and square</em> is.”</p><p>Luisa reaches up, tracing a finger along Rose’s jaw.  “You don’t either, miss criminal mastermind.”</p><p>“I know <em>how</em>.”  Rose shivers the slightest bit at Luisa’s touch.  “I’m just never really interested in doing it.  Fighting fair and square usually means someone else wins.  I like to fight <em>dirty</em>.”</p><p>“I know you do.”  Luisa glances back down to the scrapbook and smiles.  “I think Mia learned that from you, too.”  She taps one of the pictures.  “I might fight dirty every now and again, but that’s all mud wrestling.  It’s nothing compared to what <em>you</em> do.”  She winces briefly.  “What you <em>did</em>.”</p><p>Rose glances at the pictures again, glances at herself.  She looked so different then.  Her jaw tightens.  As she flips to the next page, she begins to see less of herself in the pictures.  Of course, this has to be the case.  She knows that.</p><p>“You always did like being the one <em>taking</em> the picture instead of being the one <em>in</em> it.”  Luisa smiles the slightest bit.  “I wish—”</p><p>Rose shakes her head.  “It’s alright.”  She points to one of the pictures, where she can just be made out in the background, almost the shadow of her.  “I’m here, you see?”  She tries to smile, but it’s wistful and it doesn’t quite reach her eyes.  “I was always here with you.”</p><p>Luisa nods.  “I know.  Just like you’re always with me now.”</p><p>Rose nods, too, pressing her chin against the top of Luisa’s head.  They continue to flip through the scrapbook.  In the next few pages, there are no pictures of Rose at all, even though Rose can see herself there, even though Rose <em>knows</em> she was there, just out of reach.  Mia standing on wobbly feet with her hands outstretched towards her mother – Rose can hear Luisa telling her to just walk a little farther, to just stay standing.  There are a few pictures after that – one of them is more blurry than anything, although Rose can definitely make out the form of their daughter, and the second one is Mia, collapsed on the floor in front of her, face scrunched up and tears starting to well up in her eyes.  Rose knows if there was another picture after that, it would be one of Mia sobbing from falling, but Luisa was faster than that.  She’d scooped Mia up into her arms, the camera discarded to one side, and cradled her against her.  Rose remembers bending down and planting a kiss on Mia’s forehead, remembers Mia looking up at her but not quite seeing her.</p><p>It’s enough, and it isn’t.</p><p>Rose wishes she had been able to take a picture of that moment – of her wife cradling their daughter in her arms and holding her close to her – but there would have needed to be a sense of separation from the two of them that, despite being a sociopath, she didn’t really have.  Not then, and not now.  She’d wanted to make sure that her girls were okay, and that had taken precedence over taking a picture of the moment, no matter how cute it had been.</p><p>She tells herself that, but that’s not the reason she couldn’t take the picture.</p><p>The next few pages are mostly pictures of Mia – of their little girl’s first birthday party, with her dark eyes big and round and staring straight ahead with the light of the candle flame flickering within them (and one just next to it with her hands and faced covered with rainbow-colored icing); of her first movie obsession, her pajamas all covered with some cartoon character or other that Rose had long forgotten the name of (and who had kept their daughter from having nightmares after that one horrendous television show – <em>which wasn’t their fault, Mia should have been asleep, and she’d walked in rubbing her eyes with the back of one hand, and then, <strong>and then</strong></em>); of her first party with a bunch of other friends, all smiles and hair pulled back into all sorts of ponytails, and eyes closed tight shut because their smiles were that big, the veins in their necks popping out (Rose doesn’t know if Mia is friends with any of those children anymore; she hazards that she isn’t, although Mateo, a few years older, stands in the background with a bright grin – so her cousins must have been there, too).</p><p>There are even a handful of Mia with Luisa, but Rose is nowhere to be found.  Sometimes she can see herself reflective in the background, but she doesn’t point this out to Luisa.  She knows better.  Luisa knows that she was there.  Rose knows she was there.  That’s really all that matters.  Besides, Rose had never been one for pictures.</p><p>Then there are the pictures of Mia’s cheerleading days, and Rose has to hold her breath as she looks through them.  It’s a quick flip from one page to the other for her, although Luisa reaches out and places her hand over Rose’s to stop her.  “It’s okay,” Luisa says, her voice soft.  “Nothing happened.  You know she’s fine.”</p><p>“I don’t like the thought of our daughter falling from so high,” Rose says, her lips pressing together.  She knows what it is to fall.  (She knows what it is to survive such a fall.)</p><p>“You know that she is fine,” Luisa repeats, making sure they stay on the page a little longer, “and you know that she <em>loved</em> doing this.”</p><p>Rose knows this, too, but that doesn’t mean she enjoys looking at it.  She bites on her lower lip and removes her hand from the pages, crossing her arms instead.  “Fine,” she says.  “You change it when you want to change it.”  She stares at Luisa instead of at the scrapbook.  <em>I’ll just look somewhere else.</em></p><p>But the thing of it is, as she looks closer at the pages, Rose can see where Mia has written on them, too.  Her writing is a little more haphazard than Luisa’s is.  It’s bigger – which is saying something, because of the three of them, Rose’s handwriting has always been smallest, always been neatest.  Luisa’s is the writing of a doctor, which means that for most people it is nearly impossible to read.  Luisa’s learned to make it readable for family, but outside of that?  Why should she care?  These are their memories, and they’re memories <em>for them</em>.  Not for anyone else.  Who cares if they can read what is written?</p><p>Rose takes a deep breath on the next page – Mia’s graduation.  There are more pages past that, but she stops Luisa before her wife can flip further through the book.  “That’s enough,” she says, staring down at their daughter in her horrible robe and cap with a bright grin on her face, holding the slip that wasn’t her real graduation papers – those came in the mail later, when people had mostly forgotten about them.  Rose had lost hers a long time ago; the ones from college that she’d had framed on her wall at her old law firm (not that any of that was real) were packed away, probably dusty, in a long forgotten and abandoned storage unit on the other side of the world.  She’d given Luisa a key and an address once, but she doesn’t know if she’s ever used it.  Possibly she’s never felt any need to do so.  It isn’t as though there is anything really important in there.  Certainly nothing useful.</p><p>She tentatively reaches over and swipes the tear from under Luisa’s eye.  She can feel another one darkening the front of her blouse, seeping through the fabric.  “You always cry so easily,” she says.</p><p>“I wish you could have been there,” Luisa says instead, burying her face against Rose’s chest.  “I wish you could have seen how happy she was.  I was so <em>proud</em> of her.”</p><p>“I <em>was</em> there,” Rose corrects, ever so gently, “and I was just as proud as you were.”  She taps the tip of Luisa’s nose.  “Just because you couldn’t see me doesn’t mean I wasn’t there.”</p><p>Truth be told, she isn’t exactly sure how Luisa can see her now.  Sometimes, she thinks that it’s Luisa’s loneliness that makes her imagine that she is there, that makes her talk and act as though Rose is there even though she cannot see her.  Sometimes, she’s afraid that it’s something else entirely – that Luisa <em>can</em> see her because she’s getting close to becoming as she is.  But she refuses to believe that.</p><p>Or maybe Luisa’s just special.  She’s always believed <em>that</em>.  Luisa is <em>definitely</em> special.  The best kind of special.  <em>Her</em> kind of special.</p><p>Luisa nods against Rose’s chest.  “I know,” she mumbles, voice soft.  “I know.”  Then she glances up – past Rose – her eyes wide.  “Someone’s here,” she whispers.</p><p>Rose listens, and she can hear the doorknob turning ever so slightly, a key twisting in the lock.  “You have to tell her I said hi,” she says, glancing down at Luisa and meeting her eyes.  “You <em>have</em> to tell her, Lu.  Okay?”</p><p>Luisa presses her lips together and doesn’t look up, doesn’t meet Rose’s eyes, instead looking straight past her at the door.</p><p>“<em>Luisa.</em>”</p><p>The door opens, and Rose can feel herself begin to fade.</p><p>That’s an inaccurate term, really.  Rose never fades anymore.  Not really.  Not in the sense of disappearing.  She’s still <em>here</em>, and she knows that she’s here.  But the object permanence of Luisa acknowledging her and recognizing her fades as soon as someone else enters the room.  It’s different from when she first became like this and didn’t know what was going on.  Now she knows.  She just doesn’t like it.</p><p>Rose floats – <em>floats, not walks</em> – and that’s still an uncomfortable change for her, who still so much loved the weight of her heels clinking against the wooden floor, the tension of someone knowing that she is coming, hearing her, and not being able to do anything about it.  But the benefit of floating as she is now is that walls serve no boundaries for her.  She can move quickly through them, and when she is done, she smiles – a small, sad thing – as she sees who is entering.</p><p>Mia hasn’t been able to notice her since she was a small child.  That is the worst of this, really.  When Mia was a baby, she could just see her, her eyes wide and astonished.  She’d reach out for her just as much as she reached out for Luisa, and while Rose hadn’t been able to pick her up, she’d still been able to stand next to her and brush tears from her cheek and press kisses to her forehead.  Sometimes, Mia had squealed with delight, even though that had frightened and confused Luisa.</p><p>It wasn’t until later that Luisa began to talk with her at all.</p><p>At first, Rose had been surprised.  She had been so certain that Luisa couldn’t see her at all and didn’t even realize she was there, and on that first day, she’d thought that Luisa probably didn’t know then either.  Thinking over it later, she guessed that Luisa had just been talking aimlessly into the air to someone she didn’t think was there and didn’t expect to respond.</p><p>And yet.</p><p>Rose moves towards Mia and tucks errant strands of hair back out of her face.</p><p>Mia shivers and wraps her arms around herself.  “Mom?  Do you have the air conditioner on too high again?  It’s <em>freezing</em> in here!”  She moves through the hallway towards the living room, looking for her mom, while Rose moves through the walls to reach her first.  By the time Mia makes it to them, Rose is curled up on the couch just next to Luisa again, although the other woman does not acknowledge her return or her presence.  “The old scrapbooks?” she asks, sitting down on Luisa’s other side.  “Feeling nostalgic?”</p><p>“A little bit, I guess.”  Luisa smiles up at Mia.  “You want to look with me?”</p><p>Mia curls up against Luisa’s side, shivering, and pulls the blanket over so that it now spreads across the two of them.  Rose could reach across and pull it back if she wants, but she doesn’t need it.  Not anymore.  Mia looks down at the scrapbook, at the page opened to her graduation, and sticks her tongue out.  “Okay,” she says, “but we have to start back at the beginning.  And skip the baby pictures!”</p><p>Luisa laughs.  “Of course.”  She shuts the scrapbook and then grins.  “I take it you want to skip all the stuff with your aunt and uncle, right?”</p><p>Mia gives a slight huff, pulling the blanket tighter around them.  “We can look at them.”  Then she grins, as mischievous as both of her mothers.  “Or you could take the pages out and let me write all over them.”</p><p>“<em>No</em>,” Luisa says, eyes narrowing.  “Last time, you just wrote a bunch of angry stuff.”  Her lips press together.  “Rose would have done the same thing.”</p><p>Mia shrugs.  “Like mother like daughter.”</p><p>Rose sits and watches them, even though she knows they won’t notice her while she is there.  She curls up closer to Luisa and rests her head on her shoulder.  Luisa freezes ever so slightly and looks over to her.  Rose smiles and presses a kiss to her forehead.</p><p>“What?” Mia asks, looking at her mom.  “What is it?”</p><p>“Just remembering.”  Luisa smiles softly.  She looks at the empty space where Rose sits and sighs, seemingly content.  Then she turns back to the scrapbook, opening it up to the first page.  “Later, you have to make a few more pages with me,” she says, nudging Mia with her elbow.   “We have some updating to do.”</p><p>Mia gives a firm nod.  “But you have to make a new book,” she says, lifting the corner of the one they’ve been flipping through.  “This one is starting to fall apart.  I think you’ve overfilled it.”</p><p>“Your mom said the same thing.”  Luisa shakes her head.  “<em>Would</em> say the same thing.  If she were here.”  She sighs.  “You’re better at convincing me, though.”</p><p>Mia smiles, but it’s sad.  Wistful.  She doesn’t say anything, but she doesn’t have to.  Rose knows that expression, and she understands.</p><p>That’s all she can do.</p>
  </div></div>
<a name="section0004"><h2>4. Old People Hobbies</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“We’re such <em>old</em> people.”</p><p>Luisa looks up from her knitting – okay, yes, that is <em>technically</em> a stereotypical <em>old person</em>’s hobby, but it was something she picked up <em>years</em> ago, long before she would have been considered <em>old</em> – <em>okay, maybe some people would have considered her old then, too</em> – but it was nice to be able to hand knit little gloves and shoes and scarves and sweaters for her nieces and nephews.  Mateo was a little too old to think they were cool by the time she was any good at them (he’d gotten a nameless forest green lump of her first attempt that she had <em>called</em> a scarf but which she is pretty sure they use as a pot holder now) – and glances up at Rose.  She’s gotten better at knitting over the years, and the sweater Rose is wearing now is one of her best, most recent works: a base of deep ocean blue and covered with little bits and spots that looked like stars with two black shadowy outlines sitting next to each other atop a snow-covered mountain and staring out into the constellations.  Some people would call it an ugly Christmas sweater, but it’s not holiday in nature.  Neither is the semi-matching one that Luisa is still making herself – that same deep ocean blue, but instead of stars, it’ll be covered with tiny little fish and octopi, and the women in the forefront will be mermaids all swirling around each other.  She’s excited.  She’s excited!  And she’s so cold so often anymore that she can’t wait for it to be done.  In fact, that’s what she’s knitting now.</p><p>Of course, the sweater is <em>all</em> Rose is wearing, and where once Luisa might have gone that far, she’s a little too cold on average to do that very often anymore.  (They don’t turn the heater up as much as she would like.  Part of that is to save on heating – not that they don’t have the money to pay for it, because they <em>very much do</em> – and part of that is because Rose is convinced that if they actually kept everything heated properly there would be less opportunities to cuddle.  Luisa has tried to tell her that isn’t the case, but does Rose listen?  <em>No.</em>)</p><p>Luisa pauses her knitting, which means there’s no more satisfying clicking of the needle tips against each other, and her head tilts to one side.  “What do you mean <em>old</em>, Rose?”</p><p>“Your hair is turning grey,” Rose says with a little pout, “and mine is turning white.  And you’re sitting there knitting instead of coming over here and kissing me.  Used to be that my not wearing anything would immediately prompt—”</p><p>“<em>Stop.</em>”  Luisa raises a hand, lips pursed into a frown.  Her brows knit together.  “Do you really want sex right now?”</p><p>Rose frowns and sits on the couch next to Luisa, tucking her legs up under her.  “No,” she says, finally, hands grabbing onto her ankles as her bare feet press against each other.  “It’s just nice to feel wanted.”</p><p>“I want you.”</p><p>Rose sighs and doesn’t look up.  “Yeah, but you don’t <em>want</em> me.”</p><p>Luisa looks at her and blinks a couple of times.  She moves a bit in her seat.  “I’m comfortable.  And I want to finish my sweater.  But if you want me to want you, I can—”</p><p>“No, no.  We’re old.  I have accepted it.”  Rose sighs.  Her gaze moves out in front of her.  “I should pick up an old person thing to do.  You have knitting.  You have scrapbooking.  You have the dramatic aunt aspect down flat.”</p><p>Luisa pushes Rose back with one hand.  “You are more of a dramatic aunt than I will <em>ever</em> be,” she says, smile fading.  “I’m just a wineless wine aunt.”  Her gaze lifts to the kitchen.  “I don’t want that either, but I want it.  Not enough to drink it.  But how can I be the cool wine aunt without wine?”</p><p>“Here.  You’re the grandma, not the cool wine aunt.”  Rose pulls her pair of glasses off of the table next to her and perches them on the tip of Luisa’s nose.  “You need these.  And to put your hair up in those grandmothery ringlets.”</p><p>“I’m not a grandmother!”  Luisa thwacks at Rose’s arm, and the ball of yawn rolls off of their couch.  “That’s up to Mia, and I don’t think she’s interested in kids, which is really horrible because I—”</p><p>“—<em>would be the best grandmother ever</em>,” Rose completes at the same time Luisa says it.  She turns and meets Luisa’s eyes, one brow raising in a perfect arch.  “You have said that enough times.  Maybe you should just adopt Mateo’s kids.  You know he loves you enough.”</p><p>“Jane would never let him live it down if he doesn’t have them.”  Luisa knits another line, the needles tacking against each other as she does so.  “Her girls are probably going to have kids, too, as soon as they find the right guy to settle down with.”  She grins.  “She always tells them they should settle down with a nice guy like their papi, so their boyfriends have a lot to live up to.”</p><p>Rose’s eyes widen as she lets out a groan.  “Those boys have <em>absolutely nothing</em> to live up to.”  She rolls her eyes.  “Michael was better.”</p><p>Luisa gives Rose another sharp shove.  “That is my brother you are talking about.”  She settles into her seat again.  “Although if it wasn’t him, I’d probably agree.  Michael wasn’t bad.  Except for that whole trying to throw you into prison thing.”</p><p>“It wasn’t personal,” Rose said with a shrug.  “It was work.”</p><p>“It was personal after you kidnapped Mateo.”</p><p>“<em>Which also wasn’t personal.</em>”  Rose rolls her eyes.  “You weren’t talking to me, you didn’t want to talk to me, and I didn’t want to force you to talk to me.  That was the easiest way to get it back.”</p><p>“By kidnapping my nephew.”</p><p>Rose shrugs again.  “It was the only option I had.”</p><p>Luisa raises a hand to stop the conversation before it goes any further.  “You know,” she says, changing the subject as quickly as she can before she gets distracted, “maybe <em>you</em> should pick up an old person hobby.  I could show you how to knit.”  She lifts her needles gently so as not to pull them away from the sweater too far.</p><p>“<em>No.</em>”  Rose’s face takes on a look of disgust as she stares at Luisa’s knitting.  “I’m not an old person, and I don’t want to pick up hobbies meant to keep old people complacent instead of tearing down the patriarchy like—”</p><p>“<em>Rose, you don’t care about tearing down the patriarchy.</em>”  Luisa gives her a strong look and then reaches over and pats her hand.  “Look, why don’t we start a garden?  We started one at our old house, and there was one at the hotel, and they’re <em>really pretty</em> when they’re done well, and we have all the time in the world to take care of flowers now.”</p><p>Rose takes a deep breath.  She holds up her hand and begins to tick off points on her fingers.  “One, the garden we started at our old house died.  Really quickly.  Because we’re both bad at taking care of flowers.  Two, we didn’t have to take care of the gardens on the hotel property.  We hired people to take care of them.  Who actually knew how to take care of flowers.  Three, they <em>are</em> pretty when they’re done well, but we won’t do them well.  We’ll struggle and get tired and give up.  Four, just because we <em>have</em> the time to take care of them doesn’t mean we <em>will</em> take care of them.  You and I both know that.  You get tired of stuff that doesn’t come easily to you if you don’t see any profit from it.”</p><p>Luisa crosses her arms and glares at her wife.  “I don’t get tired of everything.  I keep knitting.  And that whole <em>profit</em> bs is <em>you</em>, not me.  <em>You</em> care about profit.  And the profit from having nice flowers and a nice garden is that our neighbors will think our house looks nice, so we have a better reputation, which is useful for you when you want to manipulate them to do <em>whatever</em> it is you want them to do later.  And if we plant a vegetable garden, then we save money on buying vegetables.”</p><p>“Assuming we don’t poison ourselves with them.”</p><p>“<em>Not funny, Rose, and don’t interrupt me.</em>”  Luisa prods her with the tip of one of her knitting needles, just enough for Rose to flinch and rub her arm.  “We can <em>learn</em> to take care of flowers, and <em>when we do,</em> we won’t be shit about taking care of them anymore.  Besides,” and she gives Rose a big grin, “we can plant a rose garden.  I know you’d love to have a rose garden.”</p><p>Rose sighs and rolls her eyes.  “I don’t care about a rose garden.”</p><p>“You <em>do</em> care.  You think they’re pretty, and you would love to be Rose with the roses.  Don’t pretend you wouldn’t.”  Luisa reaches over and brushes her fingers along Rose’s chin.  “And gardening isn’t strictly speaking an <em>old people</em> hobby.  A lot of young people garden.  And it’ll give you something to do.”</p><p>Rose sighs again.</p><p>Luisa knows she’s not as displeased as she’s pretending to be.  She can read Rose easier than reading a book – books are harder now than they used to be because she needs glasses and keeps forgetting that she needs glasses and doesn’t always have them around.  (Rose uses contacts.  She’s actually been using contacts for almost as long as Luisa has known her.  She always has her glasses on standby, now that she doesn’t have to look absolutely pristine trophy wife perfect all the time, and sometimes – Rose won’t admit it out loud, she would <em>never</em> admit it out loud, but she gets tired of wearing contacts.  Luisa understands.  She just…doesn’t wear hers.  Besides, Rose just looks more <em>attractive</em> with glasses, and Luisa would rather have that sort of instant sexual appeal from suddenly putting hers on than just fooling around with contacts.  It’s the sharp change that does it.  And Rose has certainly appreciated her having them.)</p><p><em>They say old people don’t have a sexual appetite, but what they really mean is that it squicks them out.  She and Rose have the same appetite for each other that they’ve always had</em> – actually, that isn’t entirely true.  Age isn’t the problem there, and it’s not a lack of loving each other or wanting each other, they’ve just…noticed that maybe they aren’t so desperate for each other that spending the entire day in bed having sex more than once a week seems like a good idea.</p><p>—and they’d raised a daughter together.  Who might not have noticed or cared that that was what was going on when she was a baby, but the older she got, the more likely she was going to notice, and there was a certain amount of <em>not being allowed to be loud</em> that they’d gotten over very quickly.  They’d learned to pace themselves.  They’d learned to make the most of the time they had.</p><p>Luisa doesn’t want to draw on that to change Rose’s mind.  She really doesn’t.  She would rather Rose make the decision to pick up a good hobby on her own.  Ever since Mia left, Rose has been feeling <em>restless</em>, and that restlessness needs a good outlet.  A garden?  That would be a good outlet.  Probably better than anything Rose could think up on her own (because anything Rose would think up on her own would likely have a very strong negative connotation to it.  Luisa loves her, she does, but she’s not going to lie to herself about Rose’s tendencies).</p><p>“If we garden, we’ll get hot and sweaty and <em>dirty</em>,” Luisa says, pressing her lips together and looking down, pretending to avoid Rose’s eyes.  “We’ll have to shower off.  You’d like that, wouldn’t you?”</p><p>One of Rose’s brows raises, and she gives Luisa a look.  “Quit using sex to make me do what you want.  I can make my own decisions.”</p><p>“Oh, like you <em>haven’t</em>.”  Luisa’s brows furrow as she stares at her wife.  “And not just with <em>me</em> either!  You do that with <em>everyone</em>—”</p><p>“<em>Not</em> everyone!”  Rose’s brows shoot up.  Then her lips press together and her gaze drifts away.  “Not anymore, anyway.”  She takes a deep breath.  Her arms cross, and she begins to tap her fingers against one of her arms.  “Maybe you <em>should</em> teach me how to knit.” she says, lips contorting into a pout.  “I could be good at knitting.”</p><p>Luisa’s eyes narrow.  “Now that you mention it, that sounds like a <em>bad</em> idea.  I don’t trust you with needles you can stab people with.”  She reaches over and taps the tip of one of hers.  They look sharper than they actually are.  “These are blunt,” she says, “but knowing you, you’ll sharpen them down.  Bad plan.”</p><p>“But it’s perfectly okay for me to work with all of the gardening weapons?”</p><p>Luisa sighs.  “I can <em>help</em> with the gardening.  Shovels are mostly blunt instruments, and you’re too old to hit anyone with them too much.”</p><p>“That’s what you think.”  Rose’s fingers tap along her chin this time as she thinks on it for a few moments.  “In fact, I remember a particular nuisance of mine who used to love gardening, and I found them with a shovel and—”</p><p>“<em>Stop, stop, stop!</em>”  Luisa raises her hands and shakes them in front of her, closing her eyes as though that will keep the visual from popping into her mind.  It doesn’t work.  It <em>never</em> works, but the impulse is there nevertheless.  Her knitting needles drop into her lap, one of them digging just so into her leg.  It isn’t <em>painful</em>, really, just a bit uncomfortable.  She opens her eyes and looks at the needles really quickly to make sure she hasn’t dropped a stitch.  It doesn’t look like she has, but that doesn’t mean anything.  She frowns and squints up at her wife.  “Rose, you <em>know</em> I don’t like hearing about all the ways you killed people.  You <em>know</em> that makes me feel squicky and nauseous.”</p><p>Rose shrugs and settles further back against the sofa.  “You’re the one who thinks that a shovel can’t be a weapon.”</p><p>“<em>You can’t carry a shovel around with you the way you can carry knitting needles.</em>”  Luisa stares at her.  “I don’t want to be the reason you suddenly decide out of nowhere to just stab Jane the next time we see her.”</p><p>“She deserves it.”</p><p>“<em>That doesn’t mean you can just stab her.</em>”  Luisa doesn’t even squabble over whether or not Jane “deserves it”.  No matter what she says, Rose will believe that she does, and honestly?  Sometimes Luisa believes her.  Not about the whole stabbing thing being necessary but….</p><p>Jane’s self-righteousness <em>can</em> get tiring after a while.</p><p>“Can’t you just try gardening again with me because I asked?” Luisa says, looking up at Rose through her lashes, pulling her own lips into a pout.  “Maybe <em>I</em> want to be Luisa with the roses.  Maybe I want to walk up to our house and see it decorated all over with you.  And then it will just be that much better!  Wouldn’t that be great?”</p><p>Rose finally meets Luisa’s eyes, and Luisa knows, in that moment, that she has won.  (She knew this earlier, actually, but Rose is stubborn and likes to draw these sort of things out.  It’s never meant to be vindictive or petty or anything like that.  Rose just doesn’t like Luisa to win easily.  She likes her independence.  She likes for Luisa to think she’s making her own choices and changing her mind because she’s actually interested and not because Luisa talked her into it.)  Her gaze drifts away from Luisa, and she lets out a little sigh.  “Let me think about it,” she says, finally, which really means <em>yes, but I don’t want you to know I mean yes yet.</em></p><p>Well, that’s enough.</p><p>Rose reaches over, fingers tracing the edge of Luisa’s jaw.  “Now can we <em>please</em> talk about something else?”  Her gaze glances down.  "Like how I’m just wearing a sweater and you still haven’t done anything about that?”</p><p>“Give me long enough, and I’ll knit you a pair of pants,” Luisa replies, one brow raising, lips drawing into a smug smirk.</p><p>“What if I don’t <em>want</em> pants?”</p><p>Luisa gives Rose a little look.  “If you can <em>wait</em>, I’ll make it worth your while.”</p><p>Rose takes a deep breath and lets it out.  “Do I have to put pants on while I wait?”</p><p>Luisa thwacks her arm again.  “You are an <em>adult old person</em>.  You are <em>in your own home</em>.  If you don’t want to wear pants, who am I to make you wear pants?”</p><p>“The other person who lives in the house,” Rose says, her eyes blinking.</p><p>“Our daughter just went to college.  You finally got the freedom to walk around without clothes.  I’m surprised you’re still wearing your shirt.”</p><p>Rose’s eyes glint with mischief, and Luisa knows she has said the absolute <em>wrong</em> thing if she wanted Rose to maintain some sort of chill.  Without saying anything, Rose slowly lifts the sweater up over her head and drops it in front of the couch.  She leans forward on her palms.  “Is that more in line with what you expected?”</p><p>Luisa nods slowly and licks her lips once, unable to avert her eyes.  “Yeah,” she says finally, staring at her wife.  “<em>Yeah.</em>”</p><p>“Hey, Lu.”  Rose traces her forefinger under Luisa’s chin and slowly lifts it so that their eyes can meet.  “My eyes are up here.”</p><p>Luisa nods again, just as slowly, and despite her face literally having been lifted up, her gaze drops anyway.  She’s weak.  She knows she’s weak.  <em>Rose</em> knows she’s weak.  This is really her own fault.  “If I ask you very kindly to put your shirt back on, would you do it?”</p><p>“Not for a million bucks.”</p><p>“I probably <em>have</em> a million bucks.  Do you want more than that?”  Luisa’s eyes flick back up, and the smug smirk is back all at once.</p><p>Rose pouts and crosses her arms, slumping back against the couch.  “You’re <em>really</em> not interested, are you.”</p><p>Luisa doesn’t satisfy that question with a reply.  Instead, she leans over and kisses Rose – gentle but firm.  In truth, that’s all the answer she needs.</p><hr/><p>“Welcome to Home Depot; how can I help you today?”</p><p>The greeter’s tone is bored and dull and unenthusiastic, and Rose grabs Luisa’s hand and drags her forward before Luisa can say anything at all.  “Don’t talk to the greeter,” Rose says, voice harsh under her breath.</p><p>“But she’s <em>bored</em>,” Luisa points out, turning back to them as Rose continues to drag her forward.  “I just want to make her day, like, <em>ten times better</em>.  Some nice conversation with a friendly grandma!”</p><p>Rose groans and kneads her forehead.  “You aren’t a grandma, Lu.”</p><p>“She doesn’t know that.”  Luisa stops, digging the edges of her feet into the concrete floor, and pouts.  “C’mon.  Let’s go make her day better!”</p><p>“Luisa.  You have never worked in retail before.”</p><p>“<em>Neither have you.</em>”</p><p>Rose’s lips curve into a harsh grin, one without any warmth whatsoever.  “I worked in a vineyard, and I worked with the customers there.  <em>Trust me</em>,” she continues, nodding towards the greeter, “she might be bored, but that is far better than the <em>annoyed</em> she would be if you try to hold an actual human conversation with her right now.”</p><p>Luisa’s brows knit together.  “But it’s just being nice.”  She taps Rose’s nose once.  “And I’m not an old white lady.  I’m not a <em>Karen</em>.”  She has heard Mia use the term enough to know that it’s a stereotype – a <em>negative</em> one – with a lot of weight to it.  She doesn’t necessarily know exactly what it means, but it feels like it fits in the conversation.</p><p>“Of course, you aren’t,” Rose says, meeting Luisa’s eyes.  “You’re a Luisa.”  She turns back to the greeter and sighs.  “Don’t make that be the bad name around here.”</p><p>Luisa’s lips purse into a scowl.  She glances over to the greeter, sighs, and then looks back at Rose.  “Fine.  <em>Fine.</em>  I won’t go talk to her.  Even though she said hi to me and asked me if she could help and we could <em>definitely</em> use the help.”</p><p>“All she would do is direct us to someone who could actually help.”</p><p>“That would be better than walking around aimlessly until we find someone.”  Luisa pulls out one of the orange shopping carts and leans forward on it.  “I’m driving.  It helps my back.”</p><p>Rose rolls her eyes.  “If you have back problems, maybe we shouldn’t be getting into gardening.”</p><p>“They’re not <em>that</em> bad.”</p><p>“Then you can let me drive.”</p><p>“<em>Fine.</em>”  Luisa steps away from the shopping cart and gestures dramatically at it.  “Your carriage awaits.”</p><p>Rose’s eyes narrow.  “It’s not a carriage if I’m not riding in it, Lu.”</p><p>But Luisa has already moved away, towards the rack of seeds that sits just inside the door.  “Here!” she exclaims, pulling a handful of different packets off of the rack.  “We should try these.  There’s carrots and tomatoes and those are supposed to be easy and <em>look</em>.”  Her eyes light up as she pulls three more packets out of one spot.  “They have <em>sunflowers!</em>”  She grins.  “My grandmother used to grow sunflowers, and they weren’t hard at all.  It’s really easy.  You just plant them and make sure that they get a lot of water and they’ll grow as tall as <em>you</em>.”  She beams up at Rose as she puts a whole armful of seed packets into the top part of the shopping cart where Mia used to sit when she was small.  Then she waved one hand as she started off towards the garden center.  “C’mon!  They’ll have more over here!”</p><p>“<em>Luisa, I don’t think we need this many</em>,” Rose hisses as she pushes the cart up towards her wife.  “<em>You should put some of them back.</em>”</p><p>Luisa shakes her head.  “I won’t know how many we need until we figure out everything we want from the back, and it’s better to have them with us so that we don’t have to rush back and find them again, and how am I going to remember which ones I liked best when I go back to get them?”</p><p>Rose blinks at her a couple of times.  “You’ll still like the ones you liked the first time.”</p><p>Luisa stops and tilts her head so that she can give Rose an exasperated look.  “You know better than that.  I’ll end up just getting another armful, and then I won’t know which ones I want and which ones I <em>really</em> want and I’ll have to go through the other plants we’re looking at, and this is just easier.”  She starts forward again, continuing to ramble.  “One of the houses across from my grandmother’s was condemned when I was really small, and the next time I went back, there was a bunch of construction equipment tearing it down, and then the time after that it was all smoothed over.  Then, over the summer, a bunch of sunflowers sprouted.  No one had planted them or anything like that.  The seeds were still there from before the house had even been built, and as soon as the house was gone and they felt the sun on them again and the rain and everything, they just started sprouting.”  She picks up one of the sunflower seed packets and shakes it once so that Rose looks at it, so that it draws her attention.  “These will be really easy.  And then we can start collecting seeds and seasoning them and sticking them in the oven and—”</p><p>“<em>We can sell them</em>,” Rose says, her eyes widening as she grins brightly.</p><p>Luisa frowns.  “I guess.  Or we could just have them for ourselves.  Pass them out to the family.  We can be the little old ladies who pass out sweaters and seeds at Christmas instead of actually buying people presents.”</p><p>Rose’s eyes light up.  “Or we can just give presents to the people we like.  They’ll know to treat us better by whether or not we give them more than all this homemade cheap stuff.”</p><p>“I <em>like</em> the homemade stuff,” Luisa answers, looking back at Rose.  “And making the sweaters takes <em>time</em> and <em>effort</em> and—”</p><p>“It’s homemade, and it’s the thought that counts, but your brother would definitely prefer you buy him a watch than give him one of your sweaters.”</p><p>Luisa’s eyes narrow.  “He’s never said that.”</p><p>“He’s never had to—”</p><p>But Rose is brought short as they walk into the garden center.  It’s <em>significantly</em> warmer than it is in the Home Depot itself – mostly because now they’re outside where it isn’t air conditioned, and she can feel the humidity messing with her white, white, <em>white</em> hair.  She shudders the slightest bit.  <em>Then she takes a breath in</em>, and it feels like her nostrils are being assaulted by three hundred different scents at once.</p><p>Three hundred is a bit of an exaggeration.  Just a bit.  But if Rose focuses enough, she feels like she could distinctly pick out at least thirty different scents.  She covers her nose with the back of her hand and stares at Luisa.  “This was a bad idea.”</p><p>Luisa just taps the orange shopping cart and grins.  “You only need one hand to drive.”</p><p>“I think I’m getting a migraine,” Rose mumbles as she follows Luisa forward.  She tries to meet Luisa’s eyes as much as she can, staring through the back of her wife’s head.  “You know heightened scent is an indicator of my migraines.  I think we should leave before it gets any worse.”  She groans.  “This is like walking into Yankee Candle only it doesn’t smell like near as much sugar.”</p><p>“If we find the plants we want,” Luisa says, turning and tapping Rose’s hand gently, “we can leave and get back to the house.”</p><p>Rose shakes her head, still covering her nose with one hand and beginning to breathe through her mouth.  “We’ll still have to plant them.  We can’t just leave them in the car.  They’ll <em>die</em>.  We have to <em>plant</em> them.  And if I’m getting a migraine, I shouldn’t be doing any hard labor.  You know that.”</p><p>“You still have <em>hours</em> before your migraine sets in, Rose.”  Luisa turns back to her and meets her eyes with a sigh.  “Sometimes you get your super sniffer without getting a migraine.  Do you think this could be one of those days?”</p><p>Rose frowns and tries to make her eyes as wide as possible.  “Do you really want to risk it?”</p><p>Now, truth be told, Rose’s migraines are nowhere near the kinds of migraines Luisa has, and they don’t happen with anywhere near the frequency.  In fact, the horrible super sniffer is the worst part of her migraines, whereas Luisa has to deal with the light auras and the nausea and has to wrap herself in blankets in a dark room with a cold rag over her forehead and some strong medication to even make it through in one piece.</p><p>And yet, Luisa is still the one with the big heart.  She sighs and nods to herself, not in agreement but in that sad sort of compliance that says that she understands exactly what Rose is saying.  “We can go.  We just have to come back, you know, when you’re feeling better.”  She gestures to the many packets of seeds.  “But we can get these!  And I can start on the vegetable garden while you’re not feeling well!”</p><p>Rose shakes her head and reaches out, touching Luisa’s hand just as tentatively.  “Let’s go ahead and get the plants.  I should be good for some things.  Let’s just….”  She sighs and takes a deep breath, steadying herself.  “Not get <em>everything</em> today.  Just some plants for the backyard.  Vegetable garden and herbs and all that.  Nothing that has such a strong scent.”</p><p>Luisa nods once, slow.  “So no roses.”</p><p>Rose stops and leans forward, a small smile creeping across her lips.  “You get <em>one</em> rose today.  The best kind of Rose.”</p><p>Luisa sticks her tongue out.  “That’s not what I mean, and you know it.”  Then she leans forward so that she can kiss her – chaste, because she has other things she wants to do.  “Although I’m <em>very</em> satisfied with this Rose.  No others can compare.”</p><p>“Why don’t we have someone set up a day for us to have roses put in the front?” Rose asks, as she starts to follow Luisa down the first aisle of plants.  “We can water them and prune them.  That’ll be easier than trying to grow them from the very first.  We can do that.  It’s a good learning curve.”</p><p>“Learning curve,” Luisa says, stopping by one of the plants and running her fingers along its leaf.  “So does that mean if we do a good enough job with those roses, then we can try and plant our own?  Maybe a few throughout the house?”</p><p>Rose presses her lips together.  “I thought gardening was supposed to be <em>my</em> old person hobby.  That’s an outdoor thing, not an indoor thing.”</p><p>“So maybe it’s an old person hobby we can do together.”  Luisa looks back and gives Rose a onceover.  “You can do puzzles or something while I scrapbook.  Or we can do those together.  Most old people hobbies are multi-person hobbies.”</p><p>“Except for knitting.”</p><p>“<em>I’m not giving you sharp needles to stab people with, Rose.</em>”  Luisa picks up the first plant and sets it in the orange cart.  “Look!  Isn’t this one pretty?”  She grins back at Rose.  “I think we should be able to take care of it just fine!”</p><p>Rose nods once and stares at the plant.  “What is it?” she asks.</p><p>Luisa just shrugs.  “I don’t know.  It looks nice!  I can look up what it is later and how to take care of it then!”</p><p>“No, no, you can’t just do that!”  Rose reaches out and grabs Luisa’s shirt, stopping her before she can go any further.  “What if it doesn’t go well with our backyard?”</p><p>Luisa blinks at her.  “Of course, it will go well with our backyard.  We just organize them to make them look pretty.”</p><p>“No, <em>no</em>, that’s not how plants work, Lu.”  Rose sighs.  “Some plants need more sun than others.  Our backyard has a lot of sun.  Is this plant going to be good with sun?”</p><p>“I don’t know why they would be selling it here if it didn’t!”</p><p>Rose glances at the plant and reaches out, brushing her fingers along the tips of the leaves in a similar manner to the way Luisa had done earlier, before shrugging.  “Not everyone has a really sunny backyard.  Some of them have places with shade.  <em>We</em> have places with shade, Lu.”</p><p>“I guess.”  Luisa looks up and meets Rose’s eyes again, her own narrowing.  “How do you know all of this about plants?  I thought you weren’t into gardening.”</p><p>Rose shrugs again.  “I worked at a vineyard for a while, Lu.  Grapes are <em>extremely</em> temperamental, and we had to take exact, precise care of them.”  She presses her lips together.  “I liked working there.  Most of the time.  It was quiet.  Customers could be little brats, but all customers are like that.”</p><p>“And you weren’t around Elena?” Luisa asks, voice soft.</p><p>Rose nods gently and then looks up.  “So I have <em>general</em> gardening skills.  Just not anything that’s easily transferable to other plants without researching what they need or what they want.  And when we were at our old house, I did <em>not</em> have time for all that research.  Not while looking after Mia.  And then once everything was dead, I didn’t feel like putting forth the effort to deal with all of it.”  She shrugs again.  “That’s a world that I left behind a long, long time ago.  Long before I met you.  Long before I was even Sin Rostro.”</p><p>This isn’t exactly the truth.  Sin Rostro had returned to the winery after Clara left it, and the owners had recognized the little scamp who used to work in their fields even if no one else in the village did.  They’d spent the most time with her.  They’d seen her grow from thieving scamp to gangly teenager to….</p><p>Well, she hadn’t become <em>this</em> while she was working there.  Elena picked her up long before then so that she could clean her up.  But even cleaned up, the owners had recognized their little brat.  She’d made sure to make them hate her before she left.  Not intentionally, perhaps.  She’d always enjoyed working there, and while she didn’t really <em>like</em> them, it wasn’t anything personal.  She just hadn’t liked <em>anyone</em> back then.  (She could perhaps have learned to like Heidi, if she had stayed there long enough.  But she hadn’t stayed.  Now, she barely remembers her.  That’s the way it should be, after all.)</p><p>“Did you like it better?” Luisa asks, searching Rose’s eyes.  “Better than Sin Rostro?”</p><p>It still seems weird to talk about her old job as a crime lord out in the open, but the thing is that people in shops like this aren’t paying attention to other people’s conversations – and even when they are, those of them who are picking up on what she and Luisa are saying for the most part won’t believe them.  The ones who <em>do</em> might be too scared to do anything about it, and the ones who aren’t—</p><p>Well, that’s how you end up with someone like Michael.</p><p>Too many people think they could be independent sleuths who could find the big bad terrorizing everyone’s life, when in reality, most of them are too scared or disbelieving to do anything about it.</p><p>Besides, Sin Rostro is in the past now, too.  Jane’s books mitigated some of the discomfort surrounding her and perpetuated the lie that she was dead.  It had honestly made her life a little easier.  Of course, people like her knew that <em>death</em> was also usually a lie.  They’re almost as bad as comic book superheroes – dead one day, alive the next – a revolving door of crime lords (and crime ladies, although most of them aren’t referred to as such) to terrorize people who, for the most part, only know they exist with the precursory background of their thoughts.</p><p>Large effect with minimal notice on a highly criminal scale.</p><p>Sometimes, Rose misses that, too.  The control.  The power.  She could have it again, if she wanted, although trying for it at this age would probably not be the best idea.  Consider, of course, what happened to Elena.</p><p>More importantly, consider the liabilities Luisa and Mia would become and how other crime lords – or the police – would try and hurt or manipulate or use them to their own ends, provided they knew she was getting into the game again.  (This is, of course, the problem with having revealed herself as herself.  Even if she <em>is</em> supposed to be dead.  Trying to come up with a new name and a new brand would be…frustrating, and using the old one would only put people in danger.  Best not to go that route.  Even if it <em>would</em> be more fun than trying to come up with an adequate <em>old person hobby</em>.)</p><p>“I did,” Rose says, finally, with a gentle little nod.  Her head tilts to one side.  “Some parts of it, anyway.  Wouldn’t have had to worry about you getting kidnapped, for one.  Wouldn’t have had to pretend that I was dead, for another.  Probably wouldn’t have had books written about my criminal escapades, although <em>might</em> have had some where I was the young country bumpkin who some urban lady fell in love with over Christmas.”</p><p>Luisa snorts at that, and she looks up with a warm look.  “I’d <em>love</em> to be the random urban lady in <em>that</em> movie.”</p><p>Rose shrugs.  “You and I likely wouldn’t have ever met, if I’d stayed there, so everything else was worth it.”  She smiles and covers her nose again as another strong scent of <em>something</em> comes barreling into her.  She takes a deep breath through her mouth, trying to stop the sudden wave of nausea.  “Migraine’s getting worse,” she says, although the headache itself hasn’t quite arrived yet, only the strong scents, only the nausea that she normally doesn’t have.  She raises a hand to press into the skin of her forehead, waiting for the pain to come shooting forth.  It still doesn’t.</p><p>“Still sure I’m worth it?” Luisa asks, gazing out over the plants.  “You should be resting, instead of being here.”</p><p>“It’s fine,” Rose says, pressing her lips together.  “It’s fine, I’m fine, just find the plants you want.”</p><p>“You’re sure you can hold out?” Luisa asks, turning back and meeting Rose’s eyes.  “I don’t want you complaining just because we spent all day here and then curling up all needing to be babied in bed when we could have subverted <em>all</em> of that if we’d just gone back now.”</p><p>Rose leans forward just enough to press another kiss to Luisa’s lips.  “You know you like doctoring me.”</p><p>Luisa blinks, but her cheeks grow a bright scarlet.  Her head moves back and forth in an appreciative manner.  “I <em>do</em> like doctoring you.”  Her eyes narrow, and she crosses her arms.  “But I don’t like <em>babying</em> you.  There’s a difference.”</p><p>“Then you can <em>doctor me</em>,” Rose says, lips curving into a smug smile.  “I might need some doctoring later.”</p><p>Luisa sticks her tongue out, but then her eyes widen again.  Before Rose can ask her what’s wrong, she can <em>feel</em> a presence behind her – can feel her skin prickling at the closeness of them.  Rose isn’t a touch aversive person, so it’s not that kind of skin prickling.  She just suddenly feels <em>extremely</em> uncomfortable.  Her lips press together, and she carefully turns around – does not whirl because that isn’t nice to whoever is coming up behind her and, more importantly, might pull her hip, which is never a good thing – only to see another sales associate coming up behind them.</p><p>Home Depot – just like Lowe’s – is weird in that their associates have to wear aprons.  Bright orange aprons.  Rose can see how that would be useful in the garden center or in the lumber area where they might have to cut some of the pieces down to size, but the others?  It doesn’t have much use.  She understands the desire for a uniform – and for a cohesive appearance standard across all of the workers so that the average customer can pick them out easily from everyone else who might be shopping – but that doesn’t mean she has to like it.  Besides, it’s not like <em>she</em> works here.</p><p>Still.</p><p>“Hey,” the associate says.  Her name tag – a bright white against the even brighter orange – reads Jamie.  She pushes a hand through her crinkly brown hair, and she has a bit of an accent – British, at best, but of a certain sect of the isles that Rose could probably place if she thought about it long enough but didn’t care to do so now.  “Saw you two arguing.  Thought I’d best be seeing if there was anything you needed help with.”  Jamie glances over to Luisa, her arms crossed.  “She’s not <em>bothering</em> you, is she?”</p><p>Rose’s teeth grit together.  “If you’d been watching us, you would have seen us <em>kiss</em>, too.  Does that sound like <em>bothering her</em> to you?”</p><p>“Don’t know.  Didn’t ask you, now, did I?”  The woman’s dark eyes don’t flick to Rose, instead staying completely focused on Luisa.  “You okay?”</p><p>“Yes, yeah, I’m fine!”  Luisa gives the woman the brightest grin that she can.  “This is my wife!”  She raises her hand and points to her wedding ring – and her engagement ring.  They both have both; a weird circumstance of their engagement being that they both proposed to each other on the same day.  Luisa earlier, because she’d planned on wonderful things during the day, which prompted Rose to pull out the ring she’d bought for Luisa quite a bit earlier than she had planned – Rose had intended to propose later at dinner in an extravagant sort of way.  Luisa had enjoyed the proposal – the show of it all – later, even though she already knew that something was coming.  They’d both been a bit sheepish to realize that they had picked the same day, and even now, despite their anniversary, they often bought each other presents to celebrate their twice engagement day.</p><p>Rose likes the pun of that, too.  Twice engagement because they’d both proposed to each other but also twice engagement because they’d also both been married before.  Then again, perhaps it was only a second engagement for Rose; Luisa hadn’t really <em>been</em> engaged to Allison.  There hadn’t been much of a proposal there, from what Rose has been told.  But she still enjoys the pun anyway.</p><p>Rose lifts her hand the same as Luisa does and points to the rings there.  “Squabbling’s a bit of marriage.  You’d know that if <em>you</em> were married.”  A quick glimpse of the associate’s fingers shows that there are no rings whatsoever, and Rose feels smug in making the assertion.  “But if you’re checking to see if you can help us, that would be great.”  She smiles – not endearing or smug, but a grin all the same.  “You <em>do</em> know about the plants out here, of course, instead of just being another minimum wage paid grunt, don’t you?”</p><p>Jamie stares at her and blinks before glancing over to Luisa.  “You’re not as mean as this git here, are you?”</p><p>Rose’s face flushes a bright scarlet, and she takes a deep breath.  Her teeth grit together as Luisa reaches over and touches her hand.</p><p>“<em>Don’t hurt anyone</em>,” Luisa whispers as she looks back up at the other woman.  “Rose isn’t mean,” she says in her most accommodating tone.  “She’s just getting a bit of a migraine, and all the different smells in here are overwhelming for her.  So I guess we’re in a bit of a time crunch.”  She winces and gives Jamie a sheepish little grin.  “We’re trying to find some plants for our backyard, but we don’t really know much about gardening.  Can you help us with that?”</p><p>Jamie’s gaze shifts to Rose.  She gives a nod – short, firm, stern – and then glances back to Luisa, her arms still crossed.  “I’ve got a good eye for plants and taking care of them, yeah,” she says, finally.  “It really depends on what all you’re wanting to do with your garden.”  She glances down at the seed packets in the front of the cart.  “Are you thinking about a vegetable garden or a flower garden or something else?”</p><p>“All of the above!”  Luisa gives her a bright grin.</p><p>All at once, Rose can feel herself bristling again.  That is <em>her</em> grin.  Not for other people!  She leans in towards Luisa and hisses, “I know you’re a cougar, but you’re <em>my</em> cougar.”  She raises one eyebrow leaning back.</p><p>Luisa’s eyes widen and then she gives Rose a shove.  “Get your possessive migraine talk out of your mouth.”</p><p>“<em>Possessive migraine talk</em> sounds like she’s giving you a hard time.”  Jamie keeps her arms crossed, and her gaze hardens on Rose.  “You sure you shouldn’t make her wait out in the car?”</p><p>Rose’s lips press into a thin sneer of a line.  “All of the light in the car would make the migraine worse, first of all, and second, I could easily suffer heatstroke, given how hot it is out here right now – which I guess has its pluses because Lu here,” and she turns to Luisa with a grin, “would just doctor me all the way home.”  She turns back to the associate with one brow raised.  “Although I’m sure the two of you would have yourselves a <em>grand</em> old time without me.”</p><p>Luisa gives Rose’s shoulder another shove.  “Play nice.”</p><p>“Hey, look.”  Rose nods past Luisa with an easy smile.  “<em>A shovel.</em>”</p><p>Luisa jumps and glances behind her, then turns back to Rose with her eyes narrowed, only for Rose to give her a smug smile.  Jamie leans closer, her head hovering over Rose’s shoulder.  “What’s so scary about a shovel?”</p><p>Rose takes a deep breath.  Too close.  <em>Much</em> too close.  Although, to be fair, if she weren’t dealing with super sniffer scent overwhelming, she would likely say that Jamie smelled <em>good</em>.  As it is, it’s just another scent compounded on all the others.  “Inside joke,” she says, stepping away from the associate.  “But I can explain it if you want—”</p><p>“<em>No.</em>”  Luisa raises her hands in front of her, palms out, wedding ring glinting in the sunlight.  “Trust me, you don’t want to know so please, <em>please</em>, don’t ask.  You don’t want to know.  It isn’t pretty, and it isn’t <em>nice</em>.”</p><p>Jamie shrugs, shoving her hands in her jeans pockets.  “Alright.  I won’t ask.  Don’t really want to know if it’s that macabre.”  Her head tilts to the side, and she nods at the plant in the shopping cart.  “You didn’t answer my question, but I’m starting to think you’re one of those <em>little bit of everything</em> types.  Sound about right?”</p><p>“<em>Yes.</em>”  Luisa breathes a sigh of relief.  “I want a vegetable garden so we can grow our own and everything, but I also want flowers because they’re pretty, but I don’t want so many that Rose here ends up in scent comaville when she’s having a migraine, and I don’t want a lot of flowers everywhere because they’d get overwhelming anyway if it’s all flowers everywhere, so the backyard – its space isn’t quite big, but it’s not small either – it’s somewhere in-between, and I want <em>plants everywhere</em>, even if they aren’t <em>flowers</em> or <em>vegetables</em> or....”  Her voice fades away, and she sighs, grinning from ear to ear.  “I ramble.  You’ll probably get used to that if you help us!  And I <em>don’t</em> like being boxed in.”</p><p>Jamie laughs, lifting her fingers.  “Well, if you were a little bit younger – and unmarried—”</p><p>“Don’t think about finishing that sentence.”  Rose shoots a glare in her direction.  One brow raises.  “Married or not, you’d still have me to deal with, and—”</p><p>“You wouldn’t have done <em>anything</em>,” Luisa says through gritted teeth.  “You wouldn’t have—”</p><p>Rose lifts a hand and waggles her fingers.  “We don’t have to worry about that.”  She looks back up at Jamie and gives her a grin.  “So.  Helping us, or not?”</p><hr/><p>Luisa is <em>loud</em> as she carries their bags in through the front door, and Rose can hear it pounding away in her head.  The migraine itself started on their drive home, when Luisa had gritted her teeth together and turned the music up to what felt like as loud as it could go, refusing to even start the beginnings of a conversation with her.  What felt like a precursory headache was full-blown within the opening strands of the second song, and Rose can’t help but groan the slightest bit with the slamming of doors and the throwing of bags – a little more gentle than the doors, given that the plants inside could spring free of their cages if they broke or bent just the wrong way.  Rose carries a few of the bags inside, too, just nowhere near as many, and as soon as she sets them down, she makes it to their bedroom, closes the curtains, and curls up on her side in the bed, covering her forehead with a cold rag.</p><p>No medication.  It isn’t that bad yet.  That would help keep it from getting worse, but if Lu wants to hash it out over her unseemly behavior earlier, then….</p><p>Well, it would be better to be lucid for that.</p><p>Still.  Rose closes her eyes.  Maybe – <em>maybe</em> – Lu won’t hash it out right now.  Just because of the migraine.  Just because sometimes it’s nicer to doctor than it is to try and stay mad.  And Lu – Lu isn’t very good at staying mad.  She doesn’t hold grudges like Rose does.  Even with Rose, even when she’s tried.  It never really sticks.</p><p>Fortunately for Rose.</p><p>She takes a deep breath and shivers once before pulling the covers closer around her.  The worst part about having a migraine is that her head is hot and hurts, but while she tries to keep that cool, the rest of her body can get really <em>really</em> cold.  And as much as she wants to stay conscious and have the fight while Luisa is in the mood for one (partly because that can lead to some <em>really good sex</em>, regardless of her migraine), she feels herself slipping quickly and easily into unconsciousness.</p><p>Which, to be quite fair, is better for her head than having the fight would be.</p><hr/><p>It is <em>quite</em> dark when Rose wakes again later, her head still pounding, but not nearly as bad as it had been when they arrived after their trip to Home Depot.  Her stomach feels fine, but as she moves, it clenches in an unhappy, unpleasant light.  She lets out a groan and then stops, reaching over to see if Luisa is curled up next to her.  No one is there.  That means either 1) it isn’t so late that Luisa has gone to bed or 2) it is so early that Luisa has awoken early enough to watch the sunrise.  Rose hopes that it is the former, even though resting well into the early hours of the morning would likely have done more for her head than the little rest did.</p><p>Rose slowly pushes herself into a sitting position, raising one hand to her upper right temple and pressing her cold fingers against it as the now <em>quite warm</em> rag falls from the side of her face.  It drops to her pillow, where it will cool now that it isn’t in contact with her, and then she’ll be able to use it later, when she curls up to rest her head again.  Her stomach lurches as she moves into a sitting position, but as she stays still, it comes to a final rest.  That’s good.  That means she <em>can</em> move, even if it’s only a little bit at a time.</p><p>By now, there should have been enough time for Luisa to calm down.  That means now should be a good time to talk.</p><p>Or <em>not</em> a good time to talk, as standing causes another lurch of her stomach and Rose finds herself dropping back into a sitting position – <em>hard</em> – just in front of the bed.  She leans back, lets her head rest against the mattress, and looks up at the ceiling.</p><p>
  <em>C’mon.  We can do this.  It’s not that bad.  We have dealt with worse.</em>
</p><p>And that’s the truth, too.  She <em>has</em> dealt with worse.  Not the sudden drop from the roof onto the tail of a large statue (which didn’t even make sense, but it was a telenovela, and it was Jane, and, really, who cares, in the end), but plenty of other wounds – small and not so small – from her various excursions over the years.  Being a crime lord – and <em>becoming</em> a crime lord – didn’t come without its fair share of scrapes.  (In the same manner that she shot at Michael, Rose, too, has been shot at.  It was only after meeting Luisa that one of those bullets found its resting spot beneath her skin.  Luisa patched her up as best she could, leaving the bullet where it was – taking it out would have been more damage than leaving it where it was – and now there’s only the <em>slightest</em> ping when she goes through metal detectors at airports.  To be fair, she mostly avoids airports.  She has her own airplane and pilot, her own submarine – why should she use the normal ones?)</p><p>Rose takes another, deeper breath to steady herself, props one hand against the floor and the other against the bed, and pushes herself back up off the floor.  Her stomach gives another lurch, but she grits her teeth together and stands firm until the unsettling feeling passes.  It comes back as she starts to walk forward, but nowhere near as bad as it has when she first tried to stand.  She can do this.  For a short period of time.  Long enough to get out to the couch, anyway.  It’s a maintainable lope for that long, and when she gets to the couch, its plush cushions will envelop her and....</p><p>Well, it will certainly feel better than standing does, and if she feels too terribly bad, she can stretch out on the couch the same way she was just stretched out on the bed.  Provided, of course, that Luisa is willing to bring her rag back to her.  (And, in better futures, it’s possible that Luisa will help walk her back to the bed.  But Luisa is <em>mad</em> at her.  She doesn’t think she should hold out too much hope for that.)</p><p>“Lu?” Rose calls as she stumbles down the hallway and finally makes it to the couch, collapsing onto it.  “Are you there?”</p><p>There’s no answer.</p><p>Rose can smell the lingering scent of something in the air.  Not the sweet scent of soapapillas which are so similar to the scent of Luisa herself, but something spicy – probably that stew that Luisa likes to make and which <em>is</em> quite good but that always makes her eyes water so bad that she has a hard time seeing.  (At least she doesn’t get all snotty from it anymore.  That’s a plus.  She hated how it made her look when it was like that.)  Migraine is not necessarily a good time for that stew; her eyes already tend to water just from the pain in her head, adding to that with the spicy stew is just asking for disaster.  Unless Luisa <em>wants</em> to see her cry, which, considering that they’re still <em>technically</em> in fight mode might not be too far off the mark.</p><p>“Luisa?” Rose calls again, and again there is no answer.  She groans again and raises a hand to her head.  Her fingers aren’t cool enough – aren’t <em>cold</em> enough – to bring much of any relief to her head, but as she leans over and rests her head onto one of the pillows, <em>it</em> feels cool.  It won’t for long, but for now, it brings that much needed relief.</p><p>It’s while leaning against her pillow and resting her head that Rose finally sees Luisa, even if she doesn’t notice that it’s her at first.  All she sees is the movement out of the corner of her eye, just outside the window in their backyard, and her head pops up – followed by the groan as pain shoots through the top of her skull from the quick movement.  There, just outside, is Luisa, digging up the backyard.  Every now and again, she stops, lifts a hand up to push sweat from her brow, and sighs before going back to her work.</p><p><em>Luisa, you aren’t going to plant all of those plants in one day</em>, Rose thinks, her eyes narrowing.  <em>And you’re foolish to try and do it all by yourself.</em></p><p>Of course, Luisa takes that exact moment to look up, brush her hand across her brow, and glance inside.  Rose flinches and looks away from her, resting her head back on her pillow.  Still, she tries to keep an eye on her.  Luisa looks at her – as though just recognizing that Rose is, in fact, on their couch, and sighs.  She smiles the faintest bit – which maybe means that she isn’t mad anymore, but Rose knows that sometimes a wry smile like that just means that when she gets in Luisa is going to give her a tongue-lashing like she’s….  Well, not <em>never</em> seen before, but only really seen from Luisa.  Only <em>felt</em> from Luisa, too.  She hasn’t cared enough about what anyone else thought of her for that sort of scolding to actually <em>hurt</em>.  Then Luisa disappears from her view, just long enough for her to make it to the door to their backyard, which screeches open.</p><p><em>Ugh</em>, Rose thinks, wincing as the sound pierces her head.  <em>I need to fix that.</em>  In truth, she has needed to fix that for months, and she’s known it, and she’s only ever really remembered it on days when she has a migraine like she does now.  She just doesn’t think about it otherwise, doesn’t realize it’s as bad as it is.</p><p>Luisa stops in the kitchen and pours herself a glass of water.  “Feeling better?” she asks, glancing over the other side of the island to Rose as she does so.</p><p>Rose just lets out another little groan.  That’s a better answer than <em>no</em> would be.  She pulls the blanket from over the back of the couch and wraps it around herself, shivering once.</p><p>“Do you want a glass of water?”</p><p>Rose looks up, bites her lower lip, and then nods a couple of times.  She tries to make her eyes as big and doeful as she can.  Sometimes this works; sometimes it doesn’t.  Luisa is better at the doe eyes than she is – better at making them, better at utilizing them.  Rose has done her best to learn, but she’s so much better at the <em>seduction</em> type of changing people’s minds than the <em>innocent</em> type.  Odd that Luisa can use the innocent type, but if it works for her, it works for her.</p><p>“Are you going to quit picking fights with retail workers when we go out?”</p><p>Rose’s brows knit together, but she keeps her head as up as she can, staring straight at Luisa.  She licks her lips before saying, “Wouldn’t have fought with the worker if she hadn’t picked a fight with me first.”</p><p>“<em>Rose.</em>”  Luisa pours another glass of water and carries both of them with her.  She hands one to Rose as she sits down, and then she presses her now quite cold fingers against Rose’s forehead.  “You don’t have to fight with everyone.  I’m not going anywhere.”</p><p>Rose frowns and takes a sip of her water.  “Don’t have to go anywhere.  Still don’t like it.”  She looks up, still frowning.  “And what am I supposed to do?  Just let people try and fight me?  Have to prove I’m better than them, obviously.  I wouldn’t be <em>me</em> if I didn’t.”</p><p>Luisa sighs and pushes her hand through Rose’s frumpled curls.  “You would still be you.  Besides, most of the time you want me to treat them <em>better</em>.  What gives?”</p><p>Rose shakes her head and bites her lower lip.  This is <em>feelings</em> talk, and she’s never been very good at feelings talk.  She’s never really been one to be able to put those sorts of things into words, and trying to do so now – it’s easier, after the years she’s had with Luisa, but that doesn’t mean she likes it any better now than she used to.  It’s still a struggle, and it’s worse than pulling teeth (or pulling fingernails – both of which she has done.  For crime lord reasons, of course).</p><p>“Are you scared you’ll lose me?  Really?”</p><p>“No.”  Rose shakes her head and tries to prop herself up into more of a lounging sitting position than a fully spread out one.  It feels a <em>lot</em> less comfortable, but she’s able to manage.  She sets her glass of water on the side table and takes a deep breath to steady her roiling stomach.  “If you were going to leave me, I think you would have done it before now.”  She raises her hand, the light flashing off the gold of her wedding ring, her engagement ring.  “You’re in it for the long haul.”</p><p>“Then what’s going on?  Is it the migraine?”  Luisa tilts her head, eyes examining Rose – <em>examining</em> in a more doctorial, clinical sense than the sort of eye roaming that makes Rose feel much better.  “I shouldn’t have forced you to look at plants while you were starting to feel bad.  That doesn’t do anyone any good.  I should have just taken you back and waited until you were feeling better.”</p><p>“I’m not <em>old</em>, Luisa.”  Rose stops the flow of words through Luisa’s mouth all at once, takes another deep breath, and looks at her wife, meeting her eyes.  “I don’t want an old person hobby because I’m not old.  I’m still me and you’re still you and we just look different, that’s all.  We’re not like those other people who grow old and have to have easier and easier hobbies because everything starts hurting more and more.  We’re not <em>old</em>.”</p><p>“Ah.”  Luisa nods once, and she presses the back of her hand to Rose’s cheek.  “But we <em>are</em> old, Rose.  Not yet as old as some, but older than others.  And we will keep getting older.  Until we die.  That’s how people live.  There’s no stopping time.”</p><p>“There should be.”  Rose’s hands clench together as tight as she can make them.  “There should be a way to stop time and get off.  This is enough!  This is the age!  You can stop me here!”</p><p>“Rose, you can do that, but it would be called <em>dying</em>.”  Luisa rubs a thumb along Rose’s cheek.  “I’d rather you didn’t die.”</p><p>“I don’t want to die either.”  Rose’s stomach roils again, and she reaches over for her glass of water, taking a bigger drink in hopes that will settle her.  It doesn’t, not really.  “I don’t want you to make me have an <em>old person</em> hobby.  It can just be a hobby.  Not an old one.”  Her eyes narrow.  “And I don’t like you flirting with retail workers.  You <em>know</em> that makes them uncomfortable.”</p><p>“She started it!” Luisa exclaims, staring at her.  “You can’t be mad at me when <em>she</em> started it!”  She wipes her hands together.  “And what’s the point of being a fun little old lady if I don’t flirt with retail workers?  That comes with the age!  I am allowed!”</p><p>Rose raises her brows.  “So it’s okay if <em>I</em> flirt with them, too?”</p><p>Luisa shakes her head.  “Absolutely not.  You’re too good at it.  You’re more of a MILF than I am.  You’d actually end up getting someone, and then where would I be?”</p><p>“Where you’ve <em>always</em> been.”  Rose reaches over and pats Luisa’s knee.  “Right here.  With me.  You’re not going anywhere, and I’m not going anywhere.  Not anymore.  You know that.”</p><p>Luisa nods.  “C’mon.”  She shifts and gestures for Rose to do so as well.  Rose slowly moves away from her arm of the couch and turns herself so that she can rest her head in Luisa’s lap.  This is not near as comfortable as the pillow was.  She shifts again so that her head rests against Luisa’s chest.  Much better.  Luisa begins to stroke her hand through Rose’s curls, and all Rose can do is hum with quiet contentment.  “I’m not sharing you,” Luisa says as her fingers massage gently against Rose’s head.</p><p>“I’m not sharing you either,” Rose murmurs, glancing upward.  “No one is sharing anyone, and no one is leaving.”  She pushes herself up just enough to press a kiss to the edge of Luisa’s jaw and then settles back again.  “And you’re going to stop planting those plants for now and stay in here with me.  Gardening is supposed to be <em>my</em> hobby, and if you do everything, then when am I going to get to do anything?”</p><p>Luisa smiles – smug as ever – and her fingers pause their gentle massage.  “I thought you didn’t want to do any of that.”</p><p>“I’m an old person, and I need a hobby that doesn’t involve killing people.”  Rose sighs, feigning discontent.  “Burying plants is the closest to burying a body I’m going to get.  You shouldn’t take that away from me.  Then I might have to <em>actually</em> kill someone.  You wouldn’t want that, now, would you?”</p><p>Luisa flicks Rose’s forehead – which hurts worse than normal, given that her head already hurts – and then presses a kiss just there, as though that should make it suddenly all better.  “You promised me you wouldn’t kill anyone anymore.  Don’t joke about that.”</p><p>“I could still bury the bodies, though.”</p><p>“<em>Fine</em>, I’ll stop planting.”  Luisa brushes Rose’s hair back.  “I guess that means I have to stay in here and doctor you, doesn’t it?”</p><p>“Only if you want to.  I’m not forcing you.  I won’t even complain if you don’t.”</p><p>“Liar.”  Luisa shakes her head.  “The first thing you need to do is <em>rest</em>.”  She leans down just enough to meet Rose’s eyes.  “So make sure you’re comfortable.  Do you want to go to bed?”</p><p>Rose shakes her head.  “No.  I’m quite comfortable right here.”  She closes her eyes without a word of thanks, and while she’s conscious for a few moments longer, the soft, steady press of Luisa’s cold fingers soothes her until she is able to fade away.</p>
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<a name="section0005"><h2>5. Retirement Home Shenanigans</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“<em>Sh, we have to hide!</em>”</p><p>Shoes skid on the tile floor as their owners make a sharp turn – or as sharp a turn as they can make – around the edge of the hallway into one of the rooms.  The woman with bright white hair shuts the door gently behind them, as gently as she can so as to not make any sound at all, and then rests against it, head just under the window with the crisscrossed wires.  She lifts a finger to her lips, her bright blue eyes sparkling with mischief as they meet the hazel ones of her copper-skinned accomplice.  The other woman nods, gray hair brushing against her shoulders, with a grin as bright as the other woman’s hair, teeth digging into her lower lip to keep herself from saying anything.</p><p>“Hey!”</p><p>The voice is a rough bark, and the grey-haired woman’s face falls, eyes widening.  Both women turn to see one of the room’s two occupants – a man with skin the color of the darker woman’s but with even dark hair, where there is even hair at all.  There are a few scraggles here and there atop his head, but he’s mostly bald, and a few bits of stubble along his chin, probably because someone hasn’t given him a good shave in a few days.  He’ll be due one soon.  Hopefully not today.</p><p>His dark eyes glower at the two women, shifting between them, before finally resting on the white-haired woman.  “What are you doing in here?  You’re not supposed to be in here.”</p><p>“We’re <em>hiding</em>.”  The grey-haired woman gives the slightly younger man her bright grin, even though it doesn’t reach her eyes the same way it had before.</p><p>The white-haired woman gives her companion a gentle shove and starts to stand in that intimidating manner she has before stopping herself just short of the window, making sure she can’t be seen in case one of the nurses walks by, looking for them.  “We won’t be here long.  Just stay quiet.”</p><p>“You’ll get out faster if I call for help.”  The man’s eyes continue to glower at the white-haired woman, never once moving from her to the darker one.  “Won’t you?”</p><p>The woman’s brilliant blue eyes grow dark, and they shift to the other woman, who gives her a little shrug, before returning to the man.  “Try it and see what happens.  I assure you, it won’t be good for you.”  A smile as dark as her eyes spreads across her lips.  “It’s nice of me to <em>ask</em> you to be quiet, but there are other ways of silencing you.”</p><p>But he just rolls his eyes before finally looking over to the darker woman.  “Luisa.  I thought you were <em>done</em> with this.”</p><p>The one he called Luisa pauses for a moment, considering.  She recognizes the voice, and if she looks at the man long enough, she can almost remember him – almost.  She sees him younger, with more hair, with a smile that could almost match her own, as though she’d taught it to him herself.  But the memory is just out of reach.  She can’t give him a name, and without a name, without the memory, his words are less important.  She gives him a little shrug of an answer.  That’s all that she can.</p><p>His gaze returns to the white-haired woman.  “I shouldn’t expect any less from you.”</p><p>He doesn’t even say her name, and she bristles inside at the offense.  Still, she doesn’t say anything, only glares at him, doing her best to intimidate him into silence.</p><p>Suddenly, they hear more feet pounding on the tiled floor outside.  Luisa cowers against the door, trying to make herself as small as possible, while the white-haired woman maintains her tense eye battle with the man in the bed.  He groans again, as though he is in pain (he isn’t – or, at least, he’s in no more pain than he normally is), and then his gaze lifts from her to the door.  He opens his mouth—</p><p>But as soon as he breaks eye contact, the white-haired woman moves, rushing to the bed with purposeful (albeit quiet) strides, until she’s just behind him.  She clamps one hand over his mouth, holding it shut.  He begins to squirm beneath her, but she holds him steady.</p><p>Luisa’s eyes widen as she stares at her, mouth dropping open, but the woman only raises her other hand, covering her lips with one finger.  “<em>Sh.</em>”  She meets Luisa’s eyes, which flick to the man who she almost remembers before lifting back to her.  “I’m not hurting him,” the woman says, one corner of her lips lifting in a half-smile.  “I’m just making sure he doesn’t rat us out.  You don’t want to get caught, do you?”</p><p>Luisa shakes her head rapidly.  No, no, she does <em>not</em> want to get caught.  Her gaze moves from the woman and focuses on the door, on the window, waiting to see what will happen.  As she does so, a few of the nurses race past – that thundering of feet growing louder as they do so – and then softer again as they disappear down the hall.</p><p>“Still looking for us further down, huh,” the white-haired woman says as she releases her grip on the man’s mouth.  She shakes her hand a few times – he must have licked it or drooled all over it or something, because spittle flies from it – and then she wipes her hand on his blankets.  In all of the excitement, his glare has first trained on Luisa and then glazed over.  “He’s not dead,” the other woman says as she notes Luisa’s astonished gaze.  “I told you, Lu.  I’m not killing anyone anymore.  Even if they’d prefer it.  Even if they <em>ask</em> for it.”  She grins brightly at that last bit, but the grin fades away as Luisa gives her a strong, unhappy look.  “He’s <em>not dead</em>, Lu!” she exclaims.  Then she gestures with one hand.  “C’mon – you used to be a doctor.  You can feel his pulse.  He’s <em>breathing and everything</em>.  He just got a bit too excited.”</p><p>Luisa creeps forward, occasionally glancing behind her towards the window with the crisscrossing lines, as though checking to make sure she won’t be seen, and then stops just next to the man.  She takes a deep breath.</p><p>“He’s as bad as your father used to be.  All that excitement and <em>whump</em> out flat.”  The white-haired woman reaches for Luisa’s hand and interlaces their fingers, giving her hand a squeeze before lifting it to the man’s neck.  “See?” she asks.  “His heartbeat.  You can still feel it.  Good and strong as ever, right?”</p><p>Luisa can feel the flittering fluttering of the man’s pulse beneath her fingertips.  She raises her other hand to her own neck; her pulse is significantly stronger, but otherwise feels about the same as his does.  Her eyes meet the other woman’s, and she gives her a little nod as she moves her hands away.  <em>He’s fine.</em>  Definitely fine!  Maybe not the best fine ever, but none of them in here really were that, were they?</p><p>Footsteps begin to approach the room again, and the white-haired woman grabs Luisa’s shoulder and pushes her down.  She crouches down next to her so that they just hide behind the man’s bed.  “You having fun, Lu?” the woman asks, her brilliant blue eyes meeting Luisa’s and searching them.</p><p>Luisa nods once without considering it, and then stops, thinks about it, and then nods again.  The idea of moving into a retirement building had been terrifying to her, when she thought about it, even if Mateo had assured her that it was a good idea and that this was the very best one he could find.  Places like these were places where people went to die.  She knows that.  Some part of her is very aware that she will probably be here until she dies – that everyone here is, not just her.  The white-haired woman, whose name escapes her, will likely die here, too.</p><p>
  <em>Unless they escape.</em>
</p><p>That had been the other woman’s idea – for the two of them to escape from here and run away together!</p><p>Luisa had been opposed to it at first.  Mateo put her here so that she could be better taken care of because he didn’t have the know-how to take care of her as well as he wanted.  He’d promised to visit more than once a week, and for a while, it felt like he had been there daily, even though she isn’t certain that was the case.  Her memory is more than a little bit vague on those sorts of timing.  She does know that he has been by less and less often than he used to be.  He apologizes for it every time he visits!  But….</p><p>She wouldn’t have agreed to be here if she was going to be left alone all of the time.</p><p>And – to be fair – Luisa has found that she <em>isn’t</em> alone most of the time.  This woman, who she had met on her first day, has become a near constant companion.  It’s been more than comforting to spend time with her again, even if it sometimes slips her mind who she <em>is</em> exactly.  Like now.  She knows she has been told the woman’s name – more than once! – but it’s one of those things that just doesn’t seem to stick.  Her brain seems to be full with its older memories.  Some new ones.</p><p>Sometimes, she’s afraid that she’ll forget ever having been anywhere but here.</p><p>That, in the end, is why she had agreed to the other woman’s plan of escape!  If she’s going to be stuck somewhere and forget everywhere but where she is, Luisa wants that place to be somewhere else.  An island, maybe, far away from everyone and everything.  And the woman says that’s where they will be going when they get out – an island!  <em>Her</em> island!</p><p>Luisa is certain the other woman is more than a little delusional, but she thinks she’ll be able to rein her in if things get a little too….</p><p>Her eyes narrow.  She doesn’t remember the word, but she remembers that it leaves a bad taste in her mouth.</p><p>Luisa looks up at the white-haired woman.  She thinks maybe she’ll call her Snow White, for her hair.  There are <em>two</em> Snow White stories, after all, and while she’s certain that the other woman isn’t at all like the one in that Disney movie (the one with the evil stepmother who just wanted everyone to think she was beautiful all of the time – and, to be fair, there are certain retellings of that where Luisa once found herself attracted to that stepmother.  She can’t remember <em>why</em>), she thinks that she might be something like the <em>other</em> story, the one <em>without</em> a Disney movie.  What was it called again?  Snow White and—</p><p>Her eyes widen.</p><p>Luisa taps the other woman’s arm and points.</p><p>“<em>Hush</em>, Lu.  We’ve got to be quiet.”  Rose looks over to her, and for a moment, her hair is that bright rose red that it should be instead of the snow white that Luisa has gotten accustomed to since they found each other in this place, and it’s almost the inverse of the Snow White story – hair as red as blood, instead of lips as red as them.  She searches Luisa’s hazel eyes and smiles.  “This is only the first part of the plan, Lu,” she whispers as she cups Luisa’s cheek with a bright grin.  “They’re not really looking for us; they’re just looking for these.”  She holds up a ring of keys that clink slightly against each other before stashing them back into one of her pockets.  “You’re ready to go, right?”</p><p>Luisa nods twice.  She looks up at the man’s face – he reminds her of her brother – she <em>had</em> a brother, she remembers now! – but she’s certain this isn’t really him.  Her brother died a long time ago.  He must have.  Otherwise, he should be visiting her, too, shouldn’t he?  Or maybe they had a big fight.  She’s not sure.  She can’t remember.  Then again, she can’t think of any fight that would make her little brother hate her so much that he doesn’t visit her, especially since Mateo keeps visiting her.</p><p>Mateo isn’t her brother, is he?</p><p>Luisa’s face furrows in thought.  She’s pretty certain he isn’t.  Her brother <em>is</em> younger than her, but he’s not <em>that</em> young.  And Mateo’s face is so cherubic.  Her brother was never cherubic.  Then again, neither was she!  She laughs a little bit at that idea!</p><p>“<em>Lu.  Sh.</em>”  The woman with white hair – what was her name again?  Something to do with Snow White.  Not the Seven Dwarfs.  <em>Rose, right, Rose</em> – gently shushes her as the door to their room creaks open.</p><p>Not their room.  Her brother’s room.</p><p>Not her brother.  Just a guy who looks like him.  Maybe.</p><p>She isn’t sure.</p><p>But Luisa knows that she trusts this woman completely, so when Rose – <em>Rose, she remembers Rose, once she has the name, she remembers her!</em> – places a hand on her shoulder and presses her gently down, she follows suit, hiding even more behind the bed.</p><p>Heels click as one of the nurses walks forward, and Luisa feels herself holding her breath.  They have to hide from the nurse.  She can’t find them.  If she finds them, they won’t be able to escape.  And they want to escape.  <em>Luisa</em> wants to escape.</p><p>…she briefly remembers doing something like this before.  Only she didn’t have keys then.  But she vaguely remembers that Rose was involved.  Rose wasn’t <em>there</em>, she doesn’t think, but she’d picked the locks with something of Rose’s.</p><p>…which means she could probably pick <em>these</em> locks, if they got caught!  <em>She</em> could get them out!  Luisa turns to the white-haired woman and taps her arm with excitement, but the woman just taps her fingers, eyes wide, lifting one finger to her lips again.  <em>Right!  They have to be quiet!  They don’t want to get caught!  Right!</em></p><p>The nurse comes closer to the bed, and as she does, the white-haired woman – <em>Rose</em>, Luisa reminds herself; she <em>knows</em> her name – takes Lu’s hand and pulls her around to the back of the bed.  They circle almost at the same time as the nurse does, moving from the man’s bed to the adjoining one, farther away from the nurse.  Rose stops them, and Luisa holds her breath.  She doesn’t know why she does it, but it feels like the thing to do.  Hold her breath.</p><p>One of the nurse’s brows raises as she finishes circling the man’s bed, and then she stops, back towards them, facing the man.  “You’re a little quiet today….”  The nurse says a name, but it’s just static in Luisa’s ears.  She shakes her head just in time to hear the nurse continue, “You aren’t feeling sick again, are you?”  The nurse leans forward, probably to do that finger to his neck trick that the white-haired woman had done earlier, checking his pulse and everything.  That seems like something she would do.</p><p>Rose takes Luisa’s hand and gives it a little squeeze.  Then she starts to back up towards the door as the nurse is turned away from them.  She remains crouching but looks up through the window with the crisscrossing lines, brilliant blue eyes sweeping the hallway.  A little nod, and she slowly pushes the door open so as to avoid the creak that the nurse caused earlier.  She glances around and then steps through, pulling Luisa with her.  Then she sighs with relief and turns back to Lu, holding both of her hands in her own.  “You have everything ready?” she asks, searching her eyes.</p><p>Luisa nods.  She does.  She does!  She made sure to pack everything she needed into one little bag.  She remembered!  She….  Her lips press together in deep thought.  She is <em>certain</em> that she remembered.  She <em>remembers</em> remembering.</p><p>“We’ll go get your things first, okay?”  Rose lifts Luisa’s chin with one finger and nods slowly, so that Luisa nods with her.  “I don’t need anything.  I’ll just buy new things.  So we’ll just go to your room and then we’ll leave and we’ll be out and gone and free.  Okay?”</p><p>Luisa nods slowly with the other woman.  She smiles.  She can’t <em>help</em> but smile.  She’s excited!  They’re escaping!  Together!  To an island!  Where she will—</p><p>She shivers once.  She keeps thinking that she will be okay with dying, when she <em>does</em> die, that really the thing is that she just doesn’t want to die <em>here</em>.  But how can she be okay with that inevitability when she is having so much fun escaping with Rose?  When there is so much more life to be had?</p><p>What if she changes her mind and doesn’t want to die on the island?  What if she changes her mind and wants to come back here to see Mateo?  Or her brother?  Who she knows she has but hasn’t seen in….</p><p>Well, she doesn’t know how long it has been.  It’s been a while.  Her eyes narrow.  She knows it has been a while.  How long has it been?</p><p>The white-haired woman squeezes her hands again, and Luisa looks up and meets her eyes.  Sometimes, looking into her eyes, she’s certain that she’s a mermaid and she’s swimming in the ocean and there’s fish everywhere and the light filters through so bright and beautiful and <em>blue</em> and it’s just so relaxing that she can’t help but let out a little sigh of relief.  “C’mon,” the woman says, giving her a wry, mischievous smile.  “Let’s go.”</p><p>And Luisa gives her a nod, keeps a loose grip on her hand, and starts down the hallway back towards her room for her things.</p><p>The woman drops her hand, and Luisa looks back, startled.  “Just a moment,” the woman says, and she returns to the man’s room just long enough to scrawl something in weird, looping writing before returning with a smirk.  “Wanted to leave him a message for when he wakes up.  He’ll want to know the criminal mastermind Sin Rostro was here.”</p><p>Luisa blinks.  Criminal mastermind?  No, she’s certain that this other woman is just an old friend.  A really old friend.  <em>More</em> than a friend.  She’s certain of that.  She reaches her hand out, and the woman takes it, interlacing their fingers again with yet another squeeze.  Luisa thinks, briefly, that she might be okay with dying here, as long as she’s with her.  As long as they’re together.  That’s the important thing – being together.</p><p>Then Rose starts forward again, that hurry to gather her things and leave, and Luisa feels like this is the way things should have been.  Maybe they should have run away together earlier.</p><p>But better late than never.</p>
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